Harry Potter and I'm bad at titles
by WhatTheFAQ
Summary: Slytherin!Harry. Most likely Dumblebashing will occur. I know I go away from canon in a lot of the specifics which is because these are things that are either needed for the plot or things that I believe are canon. I have a plan for this story that should occur around year 3, so pay attention for that. I most likely messed up here so please review and tell me how I messed up.
1. Intro

**Harry didn't meet up with Hagrid, and so didn't know Slytherin was bad, and so Slytherin!Harry, along with that I've tried to write this Harry with more Slytherin aspects along with a more pragmatic look on life.**

**This was originally planned by me to be a oneshot quicky of a way Harry could have been in Slytherin but I found a way to make it more interesting so I slightly rewrote it to allow myself more room to maneuver.**

**Hope you all enjoy.**

**Harry Potter and I'm bad at titles  
**

**Chapter 1: Wait there's actually plot here?**

Harry woke up with a start, his hand flying to his face, no blood. He thought back to what must have been a dream, the flash of green light was familiar, but the strangest part was that after the light went away, he had felt a stream of warm liquid worming it's way down his face, that was new, he assumed that was from the car crash, it made sense he supposed, that if he had a scar there would've been some blood.

His scar was prickling as he was making breakfast at his aunt and adoptive guardian's request, or should he say order. He noticed the scar's prickling and had a strange idea that it knew what he'd been dreaming about, but that was absurd and he put it from his mind, focusing instead on not taking the pan and knocking Dudley over the head for complaining about having 36 presents instead of 37, after all, scars don't have minds.  
Harry was enjoying the trip to the zoo. Yes Dudley and one of his cronies were almost unbearable, but he managed to make it to there without anything going wrong. Once there he managed to slip away after a few exhibits and he wandered around for awhile before going back to the reptiles area, they'd passed by a huge snake before and though it had been asleep Harry thought it might have woken up. He walked up to the glass and looked in, it was lying on the rock under the main lamp in its habitat. He was about to walk away, thinking it was asleep, when he saw it twitch a little before lifting it's head up and looking at him. He was in awe of how big it was, it looked like it could fit his whole head in it's mouth.

After awhile he just started talking to it, about his life, how he'd grown up, after it stayed still through all of his talking and then opening it's mouth like it was talking he asked if it could here him, the snake nodded and Harry was amazed by it. He started asking questions with yes or no answers and the snake answered with a nod or a shake of it's head, he could tell it was intelligent enough to answer him and he wondered if it was him or the snake that was allowing them to talk. He really wanted a snake of his own now if it was him.

Dudley had was waddling along as fast as his short legs could carry him, trying to get to the food court he could see, when he saw Harry, in front of the snake habitat, the one he had had his father smack the glass to wake up the snake, he looked around to make sure his parents weren't around and walked up behind Harry to smash his face against the glass, when he heard some hissing, he thought it was the snake before he saw Harry's mouth moving in turn with the hissing.

Dudley asked him why the hell he was hissing and Harry turned to ask him what he meant when he realized he was hissing instead of speaking and had to physically force himself to speak English. By the time the boy with glasses had grasped English again, the boy without a neck had called him crazy and was leaning on the glass to look at the snake. Harry resisted the urge to laugh as his cousin's likeness to a pig increased with his nose being pushed up by the glass. He saw how he was resting on the glass and thought it would be funny if the glass wasn't there and he fell on his face.

Dudley was looking at the snake through the glass when the glass disappeared, he fell on his face and almost started to cry. He was scared as hell though when he saw the snake come out and slither over his leg, he was frozen, not moving, every bone in his body was telling him to kick it away yet he couldn't even twitch, and then the snake did something strange. It slithered up to Harry and lowered his head to the ground before hissing at him, Harry looked freaked out and hissed back at him. He wasn't talking with the snake was he?

Harry saw the snake seem to bow to him before it looked up and said  
/_Thank you my Prince_/ Harry was freaked out, before he heard himself hissing, except this time he understood himself as he said /_Any time_/. He hauled himself up as his aunt ran up to her little pig-angel and asked for someone to get her a towel for him.

The ride home was in silence except for his aunt, who was still fawning over her son. At home Vernon grabbed his ear and threw him into his room before slamming the door and telling him he was going to lose meals for this. Harry didn't care too much, as he had something, the snake had also told him to look in its cage for a prize, and before he had been dragged away he saw it, a small snake, barely seen in the grass.

He had picked it up and carried it home with him, after being pushed into his "room" he set the snake on his dresser, it had been curled up but now was uncoiling and looking around for something, Harry's mind flashed back to a class he'd had in biology on reptiles, that they were cold blooded and needed light to stay warm, so he turned on the small desk lamp he had to study by so the little snake could stay warm.

Tentatively, Harry asked the snake /_Are you hungry?_/ the snake didn't seem to find it strange that a human was speaking snake, and so replied /_Not now, enjoying warmth_/. And that was how most of their conversations went, the snake hardly ever initiated their talks, mostly it was Harry asking if it was hungry, or needed more light, or anything like that. And the snake would reply with little to no grammar his answer of yes or no.

Harry had some ideas on why this was, it was possible that snakes didn't normally use grammar, or maybe the snake was just like that since the mother seemed to understand grammar, or maybe it might have been the snake was just young and hadn't developed his language skills enough.

Harry after some time and effort, managed to focus enough on talking that he could say words and sometimes even phrases of the snake language without the snake needing to be there. And by doing this he noticed things like how it had a subject-object-verb rather than English's SVO **(Harry Ron found rather than Harry found Ron)**.

He also found that some translations weren't perfect. One example was with Harry asking the snake /_What is your name?_/, our definition of a name isn't the same as theirs, the closest way to say that in English with our grammar rules would be "What is the sound-your-family-calls-to-you-by?" as in the sound that his family would call out to find him if he had gone away. So while Harry and the snake (**whose name sounded like gibberish to Harry; like if someone said ****aggshlibft ****you'd wonder what they'd been taking, and the closest Harry got to an English pronunciation would be Slashyirintin, or as Harry would refer to him by, Slash) **could have this conversation in Parseltoungue, Harry saying it directly to English would sound very weird.

The letters appeared in a few days. Coming in in the weirdest places possible. Some even appeared in eggs. Harry's crazy uncle eventually boarded up the place. Harry realized though, that because the letters had started becoming addressed to his new room, the way he could get a letter would be to somehow get out of the house and sleep somewhere new. He did so that night, jumping with a pillow, his alarm clock, and some blankets; into some bushes. He crawled to an oak tree in the forest nearby, and then went to sleep.

He was rewarded with about 5 letters in his lap at 6:00 when his alarm went off. He jumped up and tore one open to read the contents.

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

Guess that's it, he's getting into a school, but what do they mean by witchcraft and wizardry? Next was the headmaster's name, along with some titles, most likely to show off, yet presented in parenthesis instead of right after, maybe not. Next is the actual letter.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you_... Blah blah come here at September 1st, that's so far away, by July 31st he should have sent them an owl? Guess that's their version of calling on the phone.

He rather accepted this all as fact easily enough. Perhaps it was him being able to talk to snakes. He didn't know. But if he was a wizard, he'd have to keep this from the Dursley's as long as possible, they were sure to ruin it in some way. Wait, what if they already knew, yeah the bastard read the letter and kept him from reading it. Guess they didn't want him to know he was magic. It'd make sense they kept him from having an imagination if one wrong thought could make him throw a car into the air. He was just assuming about magic of course. Well he'd just go by himself to this _Diagon Alley_ it mentions here and become a wizard just to stick it in their faces.

He left his pillow and blankets back there, along with the letters buried in them. He climbed into his room, standing on the bushes and jumping to catch the window sill and pull himself inside. He had just made it inside and under his covers before there was a violent knocking on the door and it slamming open. Vernon looked around the room, saw the open window and assumed the wind had opened it and sharply closed it.

Vernon was making a big deal out of the post, the fact that there was no post on Sundays and that meant no letters. Harry his his smile in the cup of tea he had made for himself after handing out breakfast. Slash now went with him everywhere he went. The little snake was now big enough to circle his arm, yet not big enough to do any real damage. He talked with him under his breath, snakes had a very different point of view than humans. Even with things directly involving them they always remained objective. And with Slash's increasing size, his intelligence increased as well, or at least his speaking ability increased. He not only used grammar, he also initiated conversations, and in some cases even asked questions, showing he was gaining curiosity. The snake was rapidly becoming a vast part of Harry's life, and he would protect him if he could.

The day of July 15th came around swiftly, it wasn't too special for the Dursley's except that Dudley had to go to the dentist. This gave Harry the time to go into London. He got on Dudley's old bike that had become his after Dudley had started to crush the seat. This was before Dudley really ignored exercise. He had at one point actually enjoyed it, until he discovered he enjoyed food and being an assface better.

The bike into the city wasn't too bad, he stayed in the bike lanes and almost got run over only once, the tires popped before it could actually hit Harry, Harry got a feeling it was his fault. Harry found himself at where the letter said to go. A pub that he passed through with his head down. Conveniently missing a turban headed man that was sitting at the bar seemingly talking to himself.

He picked up a stick from the ground and tapped the bricks needed to open the entrance and watched in wonder as the bricks pulled aside and a, for lack of a better word, magical place was revealed. He shook himself and checked what he'd need first, when he realized he didn't have any money. He searched through the letter and it mentioned that muggleborns could go to Gringotts to exchange muggle money for wizard money. He decided to see if he had any Wizarding blood by seeing if there were any vaults in his name.

If Harry had to some up the bank in one word, it'd be complex. Because that's what it was. When he had introduced himself and asked if he had any vaults in his name, he soon discovered he had some, his parents' personal vaults and his inheritance vault. He asked them to retrieve for him some money, they insisted that he give a key, and when it was made clear he did not have one they instead got a blood sample from him.

The blood was proven a match and he received in a small bag, a number of gold, silver, and bronze coins. He thanked them and received it in return for being polite when many others weren't. He wondered why.

He looked over the list and tried to decide what he'd need first. He figured that if he was correct that using an owl was like a phone but with paper, then the school would likely have one, possibly a lot, yes a lot would make more sense. Yet he thought hard and decided he'd get an owl, a Northern Hawk Owl if they had it, one of the only diurnal owls. It'd be less likely to be thought of strangely that way.

He headed to the Owl Post Office and requested the cheapest owl possible for a letter, time not an issue. He was given a small little ball of an owl and handed it a simple letter of acceptance and addressed it to the deputy headmistress that signed the letter, Minerva McGonagall.

He then went across the street and down a few buildings to the pet store. He didn't look much at the other pets, besides a passing thought that Slash might like to hunt a mouse, he decided that it'd be better to find one in the house then buy one from here simply to be eaten. He walked up to the counter and requested a Northern Hawk Owl and the attendee said they had a few in stock, he walked to the owl section and handed Harry a striped bellied owl with piercing yellow rimmed eyes. He spent 5 seconds looking into it's eyes before shaking himself and saying he'd take it.

Harry stopped outside Ollivander's Wand Shop. It was the only one he could find. He stepped inside and was standing still for a short while before an old man he assumed was Ollivander walked out of the back. He introduced himself as such and went on about how he knew I was Harry Potter, I wonder what he meant by that. The old man went on to talk about his parents' wands and then found him some bad wands, and finally a perfect wand for him. He thanked him politely and paid before leaving before he could say anything more, the old man gave him the creeps. You almost expected him to say that he loved wands of flesh most and he'd either be a pedophile or a satanic murderer.

He made his way to a number of stores, getting everything he needed. There was a surprising lack of students getting anything done, did every one already get everything or did he get here early. He didn't know. He found a book that interested him at one of the stores. A small edition called _Wizarding Duels_ with the subtitle _Tips And Tricks To Help You Get On Top_. The summary on the back went on to say that the book was full of simple ideas using simple spells that used what is supposed to be the core of duels, hindering your opponents ability to cast spells at you, in a number of simple ways. He opened it and the first trick was one of using the common _Accio_ spell to grab your opponent's wand. Since spells cast on a wand influence any magic that comes out of it; most wands aren't _Accio_ resistant, allowing for this easy trick. He shut it and bought it at once.

He decided to practice magic once, he thought it'd be an easy spell, the book said it was a shrinking charm and he wanted it to be able to carry everything, before he even tried to cast it he also looked up the reversal. A simple counter spell called _Finite_. He tried to cast the shrinking spell and it didn't take, nothing shrank. He tried again and everything got slightly smaller. He finite'd it and that worked easily. He tried the shrinking spell again and got similar results. He managed to get a reasonable amount of shrinkage, but judging from his trouble with an easy spell it was likely it was supposed to be smaller, but either way it was shrunk and he fit it inside a bag they were selling, bags that were bigger on the inside, he'd have to learn that spell. He thought about it and exchanged some of his remaining Wizarding money, which he now knew were called Galleons, Sickles and Knuts, for muggle money, and then deposited the rest of it. He also questioned quickly if they had something resembling a savings account. They did, and though they didn't have one open in his name, they were able to open one. He did so and requested half from each of his parents' vaults to be put into the savings vault. When this was done and he had the muggle money, he politely said good bye and left the bank and Diagon Alley.

He returned to his home and entered his bedroom to try out some of the spells. Since the _Finite_ spell seems to work fine, he instead tried the one that the book said would be good in a duel. He rather thought the word duel was pretentious of them, but hey, what did he know? He found it in one of his school books, you said the spell and then whatever you said after would come flying at you, he thought it was a very good strategy to use _Accio_ in a duel.

"_Accio Wand_" He said, and his wand flew toward him but hit the ground. It took him a few seconds to realize what he'd done, the spell had done what he'd expected, either bring the object to him slightly or do nothing at all. Except he didn't use his wand for it.

He quickly searched through his books, looking for mentions of wandless magic. Except there weren't any. He tried to make sense of it. If accidental magic, like him jumping onto the roof of his school, could be done without a wand, then it's possible that normal magic could be done without it, but why do they want him to use a wand then? He focused and thought about it. He figured that it was either some form of tradition that the Wizarding community had kept going, making them extremely short sighted, or using a wand was in some way more powerful.

He picked up his wand and pointed it at his pen. "_Accio Pen_" And the pen moved just as his wand had, slightly towards him, even falling off the desk. So if that wasn't it then it only left tradition, unless there was some unknown factor. He decided it was more likely tradition, he'd like to think the government was idiotic more than manipulative.

He tried out different spells and enjoyed them immensely, even if he didn't get adequate results. He kept this up until the Dursley's returned, which he then stayed in his room until they had him make dinner. No sweets though, as Dudley had three more cavities and needed to stop having things with so much sugar.

Harry needed a place to practice magic without fear of being caught. He decided he'd need a place out in the woods. He found a tree with a y shape and set a little toy house made of marble in his room. The house was only there because Dudley had grown too old for it. He set it upright and cast an enlargement spell on it. It grew somewhat, now about the size of a dollhouse rather than for an ant. He adjusted it as well as he could since when it grew it had tilted. He cast the same spell and it grew again. He repeated this process until it was big enough for him to work well in it. He had started to need to use magic to adjust it. Now that it was big enough and steady, he casted a sticking charm so it wouldn't fall out, and then climbed inside.

It was a cold, single room house, with no furniture, simply a little accessory. But it was great for him. He had read about the different branches of magic and what interested him was Transfiguration, which would allow him to conjure furniture. He set up the cage he had gotten for his owl, who he now calls Congelo after the state he went into when he first saw it's eyes. He had to make sure it wasn't a spell due to the obvious connections between Latin and spells. He said the spell, and even after a few tries nothing turned to stone. He was satisfied and the name stuck. The cage was set in one of the windows, and after a tentative first flight and seeing the bird return before dark, he decided to let the animal stay there and leave as it pleases. He did make a comment to Slash, asking if he was able to talk with the bird, he was not.

September 1st came around too early but also too late. Too early because he was unable to master even a single spell, and he'd like to have that done. Yet too late because of how much he's been expecting it. He wakes up at 6:00 and packs his stuff, getting everything but the cage for Congelo, who he hopes will have finished his morning hunt. He slams his trunk closed and writes up a note on a scrap of paper with his quill, which he's been practicing using in preparation. He sticks it to the door with a sticking charm and then silently leaves the house, shrinking the trunk on his way there so he can carry it easier when he's walking to the train station. He walks the short distance to the house and climbs up, finding Congelo, presumably back from a meal, happily sitting in his cage.

He sat down and thought about what time he'd need to get there to get a ticket from whatever kind of magical train they have there. He decides since the train is leaving at 11 he can get there at 10:00 and sort things out, and to walk to it from here should take about half an hour so he should be able to leave at 9:30, that leaves two and a half hours of waiting. He decides to try out the summoning charm again. It's a harder spell and he wants to be adequately good with it, he enjoys the uses of it.

He focuses and points at a leaf on the ground, "_Accio _Leaf". The leaf flies up about 7 feet but falls back down. He tries again and it gets close enough that he could grab it if he reached for it. He's so close to mastering it since it's one of the spells he's used the longest.

His time is spent trying out the spells on different objects, mostly leaves, around him. He eventually reaches out the window and tries the summoning again and it flies into his hand, he's happy that he's extended his range to this. He brings it inside and tries one of the spells he's been putting off using, the fire creating spell. It's one that he thinks could be useful in a number of ways. He says the spell slowly and a tiny spark flies from his finger to the leaf, it hits and starts to burn, but loses energy and only a tiny burn hole is there. But he's happy he got a reaction at all.

When he checks his watch for probably the 100 somethingth time it says that its 9:27 and he gets up, startling both Congelo and Slash, who were quietly resting while he casted spell after spell. He picked up the cage and held it one hand while Slash waited by his leg. He lowered his hand and let Slash slither up it, circling his arm a few times in his length of about a foot. Harry thinks that at this size he can keep him well fed, but he'd have to learn of a way to get him enough food if he gets bigger. He considers his option and thinks that enlarging the food might work. He climbs down with the cage in his hand, sets it down and then climbs back up to grab his stuff and shrink it down to put in the bag. He has his stuff and starts walking into London towards the train station.

He reaches the station and politely asks the guard where the train leaving at 11 is. The guard replies that he must have the time wrong, since there is no train leaving at 11. He nods and says he's going to ask his mommy for the time again. He walks away and starts looking for anything that resemble a magical entrance. He notices a strangely dressed family walking purposely for a part of the station, he is about to dismiss them when he notices that the child has a cage with an owl in it. He thinks its worth a shot and catches up with them to ask where the train leaving at 11 is.

"Oh do you not know? I guess the letters don't tell you. Hi, I'm Dannus Wolf, this is my wife Anneria, and my son Garrett"

"Hi I'm Harry, Harry Potter" The look of awe on their face was confusing to him. "You seem to know my name, is there something I don't know?"

"Wait, don't you know how famous you are?"

"For what? I haven't done anything"

"Not done anything, my boy, when you were a baby you defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named"

"Who's that, some bad guy right? I'd guess that's why my aunt and uncle have me, instead of my parents."

"I'm not the right person to tell you about this, and we have to go, here simply walk through this column right here, it's not really there"

"Alright" He walks through and comes out into a large side of the building filled with staff and students alike. He walks to the nearest wizard and asks to know how to buy tickets. He gets directed to a ticket booth and buys a student ticket and pays in the leftover muggle money he has, not having had a chance to get more from Gringotts. He gets his ticket and walks onto the train.

Looking at the boxes as I'm walking by, I see one with the kid who's dad helped me, Garrett, in. I open the door.

"Mind if I sit here, I don't feel like sitting alone"

"No problem"

"So can you explain why I'm famous apparently?"

"He-Who-Must-"

"Yes, He-Who-We-Act-Like-A-Bitch-Around-His-Name, how did I defeat him, did I kill him? Does he not have a name or something?"

"His name is... Voldemort"

"Ok. Anything more human?"

"Not that we know, and nobody knows if he died that night or not"

"What night is that?"

"Halloween"

"Ok. So I'm guessing my parents are dead"

"Yeah, sorry I had to tell you that"

"It's fine, so I don't know too much about Hogwarts besides our courses, mind filling me in?"

"Well the founders were Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Godric Gryffindor, they each formed a house based off the trait they thought was most important, Slytherin; Ambition, Hufflepuff; Loyalty, Ravenclaw; Wisdom, Gryffindor; Bravery, and then you get sorted into one"

"I'm going to ignore the alliterative names for a minute, but why is a school sorting you based on your personality, and one personality trait to boot, shouldn't we work together, that'd give us some diversity"

"I don't know why, it was there choice"

"Well I don't know which I belong in since I as a human being, have multiple traits"

"Well there's a way they tell you which you belong in"

"What is it?"

"A magical hat that reads your thoughts"

"So if I was the most backstabbing person in the world, but I thought of loyalty could I get into Hufflepuff?"

"I think it goes deeper than that"

"Alright, then what about invasion of privacy then? Aren't there laws against that?" The discussion continued as people passed by their box. Eventually a girl poked her head in "Has anyone seen a rat? Neville's lost one"

"No we haven't sorry" Garrett said.

"Do either of you know the summoning spell well? Because we could use that, I don't know it well enough to pull him to my hand, I could pull him towards me though"

"You know the summoning spell? That's a grade 4 level spell"

"Huh, and who are you?"

"Hermione Granger"

"Well Hermione, I'm Harry Potter, and this is Garrett Wolf"

"You're Harry Potter?"

"Yeah, and I learned I was famous about 5 minutes ago"

"Well... Wow, can I see your scar?"

"Oh right, yeah, I guess it wasn't from a car crash" He holds up his hair to show the lightening bolt.

"Wow, you're one of the most famous wizards in the world"

"Uh-huh, well it really hasn't sunk in I guess because I still feel the same, but yeah, I guess I will use the summoning spell" He gets up and walks out into the hallway. "_Accio_ Neville's toad" Their was a loud bump from down the hall, and a confused door opening with some red headed kid saying "Is this anyone's toad, because it just slammed into my door". A kid who was apparently Neville, ran over and picked up the toad. Harry nodded and went back inside.

"Found the toad"

The next hour or so was full of talking as Garrett and Hermione tried to explain the basics of Hogwarts. He nodded and understood most of it. When the train stopped and they walked outside, a giant man stood over away from the train yelling "Firs' years, this way, firs' years" They followed him and sat in one of the boats along with the boy Neville who mostly stayed quiet and was holding a bucket.

As they hit the shore and walked inside they had to wait for the Deputy Headmistress to come and get them. Harry sat with his friends and marveled at the feeling, having little to no friends while in school due to his cousin. McGonagall opened the door and brought them into the Great Hall.

**So how was that? I think I set up the Pre-Hogwarts setting of this Harry Potter one well enough, well yes they do get to Hogwarts but there's no lessons yet. I know a lot of this seems heavy handed, with to much tell, and not enough show, and I'm trying to fix that, so I'd like you all to criticize it to your heart's extent, I'll take what advice I can to make this better.**

**I don't see a definite end to this fanfic so unless I come up with one along the way this story will spiral into abandonment, but I won't let that happen for at least 10 chapters and then we can go from there.**

**I hope you all enjoyed this, I'll see you in the next two weeks (probably), favorite if you liked it, follow if you want to see more, and review if you have anything to add, or comment on, or criticize me for. Until next time**

**-WhatTheFAQ**


	2. Year 1

**I enjoyed writing that last chapter so I'm going to write this now. It will most likely establish the characters and where they are, and possibly finish off year 1 if I write enough. My main focus is getting Harry into the mindset I want before my surprise in year 3. Oh also, I know I completely butcher the canon class line up, and that's because, like I said before, its needed that way for the plot.**

**I will of course make changes as I'm writing to any comments that you might have. Hope you all enjoy.**

**Chapter 2: Hold on you actually enjoyed the chapter?**

Harry stood with his fellow classmates in the center of the Great Hall. At the end of the hall was the teacher's table, and in front of that was a stool, which Professor McGonagall now stood by, with an old hat in her hand. The hat gave a merry little song and then the first person was called up. He stood with his friends and watched as each student went by at the call of their name until "Granger, Hermione" was called, she walked up to the stool after waving to her friends, and sat down, she was soon enough announced as a Ravenclaw, and ran off to the table. "Potter, Harry" was called soon after. He walked up slowly and sat down on the stool to lots of whispers and mutterings. The hat was put on him and it slid over his eyes.

_Hmm, difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, my goodness, yes. And a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?_

_I don't really know, I think there's more to me, like you said, then to put me in a single category._

_Huh, we've got a thinker here, well that only makes me more sure of my decision. And remember, there's always more to something then you think there is. I think you'll find your place in_, the last word is shouted out loud, "SLYTHERIN"

He nods and walks off to the table on his far left. He notices most of the Slytherins looking smug. He wonders if its that he joined their table or if they're always like that. He's kind of sad that he won't be seeing Hermione as much if he's right about the houses being separate. He sits down next to one of the other first years. A boy whose name was Leo or something. And waited for Garrett to get called.

"Hi, I'm Draco Malfoy" The kid sounded like Harry should be down on his knees for seeing him in the flesh.

"Hi, and my name is Mind Your Own Damn Business" Perhaps a bit harsh, but he reminded him too much of Dudley

"I'm sorry, did I hear that correctly" Oh vaguely veiled threats

"Sorry, I should have phrased it a bit differently, I don't care who you are, and as I made no move to talk to you when I sat down and I have been looking away the entire time, I assumed it was clear I didn't feel like talking. Sorry it wasn't made clear." Malfoy shut up after that.

"Hufflepuff." And the red headed kid, who was apparently named Ron Weasley, was sorted, next was Garrett and Harry picked himself up to look closely. "Slytherin" Garrett smiled and walked over to sit between Harry and Malfoy.

"Hey Draco, I should have mentioned it to you before, I met Harry Potter on the train, and I had to explain to him that when he was a kid he defeated You-Know-Who"

"He didn't know?"

"No, he was staying with his muggle relatives apparently until he got his letter, and they didn't tell him anything"

"Technically I didn't get my letter immediately, they hid them from me, I figured out they were addressed to exactly where I lived, whether in this room or another, so I got some blankets and slept in the woods outside, and I got a letter and read it out there"

"Those fucking muggles, I wish I'd been there, I would've taught them to respect a wizard" It seemed he was still trying to make friends with Harry, Harry decided to give it a shot.

"Maybe so, but I could've done it any time, its mostly that they were afraid of me, and I think they might be even more afraid now that I'm getting some training"

"Well you won't be able to now" Garrett said.

"Why not?"

"Because of the trace"

"What's a trace?"

"The trace is a charm put on your wand and doesn't go away until you come of age"

"18?"

"17"

"Oh, and does it prevent me from doing magic? How will I be able to perform in my classes then?"

"It just tells the ministry what magic you are doing at the moment, and if you're underage then they'll arrest you"

"Well that's bollocks."

"Yeah it is"

/_I'm hungry, where is some food?_/

/_I don't know, I'll ask_/

"Harry, what are you doing?" Garrett asked.

"Talking to my snake"

"You have a snake?" "You can speak Parseltongue?" Different questions with the same answer.

"Yes to both, although is that what its called? Pretty strange name. And why is it a surprise, aren't most wizards able to do it?"

Malfoy answered. "Parseltongue is an ancient art, attributed to Slytherin himself, is there any chance you're related to him?"

"I don't know, I just found out I was a wizard this summer you know. I guess it makes sense I'm in Slytherin though"

"Harry we're going to have to keep this quiet," Garrett told him, "There's so much prejudice against Parseltongue. It's supposed to be the mark of a dark wizard"

"So what, I have to contend with defeating a famous dark wizard as a baby, while also being a dark wizard myself, well this sounds like a bad backstory doesn't it?"

"I guess, but Harry, don't you want this to be kept quiet? At the very least, snakes aren't supposed to be kept as pets"

"Yeah, speaking of him, Slash wants some food, any idea when that's coming out?"

As if on cue, an old man with a beard stepped forward and started talking. He gave a strange speech, a few strange words, and then sat down again. And then the plates in front of him were covered in food. Harry smiled and started filling his plate. Making sure to get enough meat for Slash.

/_Left arm_/ Harry said to Slash. Slash slithered down his arm and Harry felt his head touch his palm. Harry kept his left arm by his side and used his right hand to pick up food with a fork. Making sure to eat as much food as he gave to Slash. He did this by spearing some meat, lowering his arm down, and sliding his left arm over for Slash to eat off the fork. He repeated this until Slash said he wasn't hungry anymore.

Garrett brought it up again when they had mostly stopped eating.

"So tell us how you got the snake?"

"First of all his name is Slash, and I got him from his father, a Burmese python from the zoo"

"And how and why did the snake give you his kin" Malfoy asked.

"I was talking with him through the glass, and when my cousin pushed me aside and knocked on the glass, I accidentally vanished the glass and he fell in, kicking and screaming, the snake thanked me and told me to look in the habitat. There was a small snake, about the size of my pinkie, and it was him. I took him home and fed him." Harry held up his snake and it poked it's head out. Malfoy went pale and looked away as quickly as he could.

"Draco what's wrong?" Garrett asked.

"Harry, how the fuck did you get a bloody basilisk?"

"Aren't those the mythological snakes that breath fire and leave a trail of poison?"

"Not that fucking muggle story, I mean the real ones, the ones that Herpo the Foul discovered how to make. They kill you if you look them in the eye"

"What? You're joking"

"That's what they look like, green with a red plume, how you've survived this long I don't know, but put the damn thing away" Harry didn't know what to think. He decided to say his theory.

"But his father was a Burmese Python, I'm sure of that, even if his mom was a Basilisk, I don't think he has this death vision you're talking about."

They kept talking, Malfoy looking away until Harry had put Slash back up his sleeve. They went back and forth, Malfoy wanting to test the snake's ability to kill through sight before anything was done. Garrett wanting to keep it hidden for Harry's sake. Harry wanting to let Slytherin know because otherwise someone was going to find it and kill it.

When it was time to leave, Harry and his friends followed the prefect Gemma. She seemed polite enough. She brought them through some twists and turns and down staircases before going down a very long one into what looked like a dungeon. He knew he'd need help getting to classes.

"Carpe Noctem" She said to a wall. It lifted and a passageway was revealed.

"Seize the night?" Harry mentioned.

"Don't know, probably means something to a prefect."

They walked down the hallway and reached a room that looked to be under the lake Harry had gone across on. Harry and the rest of the first years freak out when a large eye passes by the window.

"Don't worry, its just the giant squid"

"'Just the giant squid', why do we live here when a squid could crush us at any moment?" Draco says to them.

They get shown their beds and Harry slides into his since their things haven't been brought in yet. He falls asleep and doesn't dream.

Harry wakes up at the time he normally does, 6:00, two hours before classes. He stretches and lightly shakes his left arm to wake Slash up. He checks his stuff and thinks that it has been untouched. He pulls on a new pair of robes and puts his bag over his shoulder. Walking into the common room and sitting on one of the many couches.

He had just gotten a book out for his first class, Potions, when Garrett came walking in from the dorms, still in a wrinkled pair of robes from the night before.

"Harry why are you awake, it should take us 5 minutes to get to Professor Snape's class" He said through a yawn.

"I'm always awake at this time, and how do you know where the classroom is?"

"Draco mentioned it to me last night, and that meant we could Sleep. In." He emphasized the last two words in his sentence.

"Once I wake up its hard for me to get back to sleep, so I decided to get dressed and start reading my potions book"

"You haven't read any of it?"

"Some, but when I discovered I couldn't do them at my house, I closed it and worked on something more practical, like the summoning charm" He takes out his wand and says "_Accio_ Quill" The nearest quill to where Harry pointed flew out of its ink holder and flew toward his outstretched hand, before flopping to the floor, "...I haven't mastered it yet". Garrett was having trouble not laughing. He sat down and planned to wait by the fire until around 7:30 to get dressed. At that time he did get dressed, and then was ready to go with the rest of their year.

Potions was a difficult class for Harry, he focused and managed average work, but the problem was the mediocre teaching, it wasn't like Professor Snape was a bad teacher or anything, it was that he didn't even try to teach them, he simply put the instructions on the board and let them work. Admittedly Harry somewhat enjoyed this atmosphere as it was similar to his work when he was back at his house, working on a spell and trying to master it, but this was still completely different work.

Harry handed in his vial at the end of class and was treated to a glare from the professor. He tried to act like he didn't see it and went to get his stuff to go along with the rest of the students to their next class, when he stopped and said to Garrett and Draco that he'd catch up. He turned and went to the professor.

"Sir, do you mind if I talk to you before the next class starts"

"No Mr. Potter, I have to finalize the lesson plan for the next class"

"Then when can we talk?"

"If it is an academic question then any time after classes have ended I will be in my office grading papers"

"Professor Snape why did-"

"Mr. Potter you will be late for your next class if you don't go now"

Harry caught up with his classmates as they entered their first shared class, Charms with Ravenclaw. Hermione smiled as Harry entered with Garrett and Draco, she was sitting alone and Harry and Garrett sat on either side of her, with Draco; seemingly annoyed, sat next to Garrett.

"Alright class, for this first class, let's see you try to perform the simple charm that softens things, can anyone name this spell?" As Professor Flitwick finished speaking, Hermione's hand raced into the air. "Yes Ms. Granger?"

"The incantation is _Spongify_"

"Very good, very good Ms. Granger, 5 points to Ravenclaw, now can anyone tell me how you move your wand to do it?" Nobody immediately raised their hands. "Nobody? Well that's because your books do not tell you, now that is an important part of charms, how you move your wand is half of the work, now, partner up, one person will choose an object and try to soften it, I will undo the spell if you manage to cause anything to happen" Harry asked Hermione and Garrett turned to Draco.

Harry said the spell, moved his wand, and pointed at the textbook with his wand. It did nothing, he tried it again and it did nothing, Hermione was trying not to laugh as Harry got more and more worked up over it. Hermione's jaw hit the floor as Harry had set his wand down, pointed at the book and said the spell, the at first hard back book was now similar to cardboard. Harry held his finger to his lips and then called out to Professor Flitwick, "Sir? I think I've done something to it" He held up the book and showed how the cover could be bent easily and then slowly returned to it's original position. He clapped and almost fell off of his stack of books. He grabbed his wand and pointed it at the book and silently finite'd the spell, the book returning to normal. Harry handed the book to Hermione and it took her many seconds to return to normal and ask under her breath. "How did you cast the spell without using your wand"

"I figured that because accidental magic is done without a wand, that I could do it as well, and the only reason most people can't is because they're so used to a wand, and since I started training with my wand and without it at the same time, it's easier. So far the only possible upside I've found is better ability to aim, and it's more a detriment if you ever lose it, so I'm assuming it's tradition, which makes wizards very short sighted" Hermione was silent for another long time.

"You have to teach me this after classes" She said firmly.

"Alright fine, I guess"

This was why, as they sat it the court yard, he did not talk to Snape about why he had glared at him. It was also why they were thought to be dating, sitting close together and talking in hushed voices does imply that, even if another explanation is that they were breaking a rule, like the rule against doing magic outside of classrooms. She silently cast a spell she had read about, the levitation charm, on rocks, she didn't know the wand movement for it and was forced to learn without her wand.

"Yet another argument for not using a wand, you don't have to make the movements for charms, allowing you to get a head start on your opponent"

"_Wingardium Leviosa_" She said under her breath, pointing at a rock. The rock slightly moved, disturbing the leaves around it. She held her breath and said it again, it slightly rose and then landed among the leaves, causing a crunching sound. She laughed in triumph in her head and hugged Harry fiercely, unfortunately crushing Slash in the process, causing him to come out of Harry's sleeve and hiss at Hermione.

/_Leave human, I don't care to be crushed by your weight_/ Harry covered him with his hand and spoke quickly.

/_She didn't mean to, she didn't know you were there, if she gets you food will that make you feel better?_/ Hermione was freaking out silently at this new development. Two to be exact.

/_Fine_/ Slash retreated back into Harry's sleeve with the promise of food.

"Why the heck do you have a snake in your sleeve?"

"His name is Slash first of all"

"Slash? Why does your snake have a name?"

"He isn't really my snake, we're more friends"

"How can you be friends with a snake?"

"Well he's not an animal... Well he is, but he still has a mind, I can talk to him, and I think he's part magical snake because he can talk back, and I haven't been able to find a snake with this pattern in muggle records so."

"How did you get him?"

Harry told Hermione the story of how he got Slash, how he got him into Hogwarts, revealing surprisingly a lot about how he grew up to her. He left out the possibility Slash was part Basilisk and then waited for her response.

"So I crushed him when I hugged you?"

"You kinda did, but he said if you bring him food he'll forgive you"

"I'll do that"

They had forgotten their reason for being there but quickly remembered and Harry congratulated her on getting a response without her wand. She thanked him again and said she was going to go tell her friend.

"No you can't"

"Why not?"

"Because for one you're telling them you broke the rules"

"Oh she wouldn't betray me like that-"

"One, you're in Ravenclaw, the smart house, not the loyal house Hufflepuff. And two; she's going to demand you or I teach her, and then she'll tell her friend, and eventually this ability I learned will be told to the whole school"

"And you don't want that?"

"I both don't want the attention it will bring to me, nor the constant advances to teach someone how to do it, nor the story to get twisted around and ending with me blowing up a wall or something with simply my hand and people thinking I'm a dark wizard"

"Oh that won't happen, she won't tell anyone if I ask her not to."

"Hermione, I'm asking you not to and you still want to. And another thing, you're in the Ravenclaw, the house that's good side and bad side, from my understanding, is pride on the bad side, and love of knowledge on the good side, and part of the good side is spreading knowledge so everyone can know it, don't you want to tell your friend so that she'll know how to do it as well?" Hermione was stopped for a moment at his words. She realized he was right, though she wanted him to be wrong in so many ways.

"Alright, I won't tell anybody unless you let me"

"Good, thanks Hermione"

It took many days due to homework and such, for Harry to actually get the chance to talk to Snape. He approached him after finishing up his paper for McGonagall, whose teaching style was making him appreciate his practice of the spells beforehand. Otherwise he knew it would be very difficult for him to do the practical side of things. He entered Snape's office at the professor's invitation.

"So Mr. Potter, what is it you wish to talk to me about academically" He said the last word as if he knew Harry had come here for a different reason. And was preparing an excuse if their talk strayed away from school work.

"I was wondering why you simply put instructions on the board instead of actually telling us what to do"

"Would you like me to hold your hand through every step Mr. Potter? In real life you aren't going to have a teacher for most potions, you're going to have to read the instructions and do what it says to do, and even if it was different, I have to grade papers, the amount of homework I have to do is staggering" His last point made it seem as if it was their fault for doing the work he assigned.

"No, I was just expecting some actually teaching when I came to your class"

"Well is that so Mr. Potter, well I don't believe it is your place to tell me how to teach my class, and I believe Professor Dumbledore would agree with me" Snape sidestepped his next response of going to the headmaster by implying he agreed with Snape's teaching methods.

"Alright I guess it isn't," Harry turned to walk away, his attempts at gaining some actual teaching set aside like an annoying fingernail, simply cut off and thrown away, "Professor Snape, may I ask you something not related to academics?"

"You already have, but I understand your meaning, go on."

"Why do you not like me?"

"Whatever do you mean Mr. Potter, I like all of my students equally" The statement couldn't have been said with less enthusiasm.

"Well you seem to glare at me in class, you reply with polite but curt responses to my questions, you continue to ignore me at the moment for a simple paper written by Goyle, and you seem to not have a reason for it" Snape turned to look at him, and set down the paper he was grading and looked at him.

"Would you like to know why I dislike you Mr. Potter?"

"Yes I would"

"Because you are just like your father. You have that arrogant look like we should all be bowing before you, you don't care about your work, you have that blasted black hair of his, and your eyes are-" He cut himself off at his rant. "Mr. Potter, our conversation has gone away from it's original topic, you have asked me a question about my teaching and I have answered it, please leave my office at this moment." Snape was noticeably shaking at that point. Harry nodded and left the office quickly. Going to the common room and then almost running to his dorms he went through the door and sat in his bed. Garrett was there and looked at him strangely when he ran in. But when Harry didn't say anything he shrugged and went back to the paper for Professor McGonagall.

It took many weeks for something interesting to happen, nothing changed in Potions besides Snape now completely ignoring Harry rather than glare at him, Harry didn't know which he hated more. The interesting thing was when Draco rushed into their dorms after classes were over. He held his cupped hands together with something inside, Harry sat up while Garrett had been in the common room and walked into the door as Draco was explaining to Harry what he had in his hands.

"So you know how Weasley has that rat?"

"Yeah, Scabbard or something, don't tell me you stole it"

He made a show of sounding offended, "I, Draco Malfoy, steal something? Never. I merely... Borrowed it. For testing"

"And what testing was this"

"To see if Slash does have the death vision as you put it" Harry was surprised Draco had remembered Slash's name. He lifted his arm and held his palm up, and Slash came slithering out, Harry explained the situation and Slash was open to it since it provided a new opportunity for hunting. Slash was almost too big to carry around now, he was about three quarters as thick as his arm and was long enough to wrap around his arm many times and still go from shoulder to wrist. He held his head up and Draco looked away but kept his hold on Scabbers. His head poking out from between Draco's fingers and thumb.

/_So look the rat in the eye_/

/_Yes I get it_/ Slash looked and managed to make eye contact many times, yet the rat still squirmed around in Draco's hand.

"Well that settles it I guess" Harry said.

"Is there any chance the rat is immune?"

"No, a basilisk's gaze will kill anything according to my father"

"So there must be another type of snake with green skin and a red plume?"

"No, I've been thinking about that," Harry said "I think Slash's mom was likely a Basilisk, it likely was picked up by the muggles and then laid the egg for the Burmese Python before either being killed by the muggles or it escaped like the python did."

"So what, it gets the colors but not the death gaze?" Garrett asked.

"Likely it'll get its size as well, you'll need either a way to hide it, or keep it from growing"

"Maybe I could use a shrinking charm on it"

"That might work, but what effects it'll have on his health I don't know"

Harry decided to try it with Slash's permission, and when he got it he cast the spell on the half basilisk. The snake shrunk to about half his previous size and quickly said that it felt more like the world had grown then he had shrunk. He slithered back up Harry's arm and said the feeling was weird after being able to stick his head out Harry's sleeve while also feeling his shoulder. Harry nodded but said to Draco that he ought to give the rat back, especially if he was only borrowing it for testing. Draco groaned and left the dorms, presumably to give the rat back.

Harry and the rest of the Slytherins were out with the Hufflepuffs with Madam Hooch, about to start practicing with their brooms. Everything went smoothly except for a lazy attempt by Weasley to make Draco get on his broom, presumably so he'd be punished and Weasley would feel he'd have gotten back against Draco for taking his rat. Draco didn't though and though Harry and Draco were the best of the group, Garrett and Hermione doing poorly, nothing exceptional happened.

It was at Halloween that something strange happened. With Professor Quirrell's proclamation that their was in fact a troll inside the dungeons. Harry rather thought it idiotic then that they were being told to go back to there common rooms. Which for the Slytherins, meant going into the dungeons where there was a troll. They managed to make it inside without meeting any troll and were told that Professor Snape had dealt with the creature when it was found, knocking it out and it was then sent to the Ministry to be dealt with there.

Near the end of the year the students were told that Professor Quirrell had gone insane and was being brought to St. Mungo's for treatment. Harry found this strange that he could just go insane with seemingly no previous problems besides being twitchy. At the end of the year Ravenclaw won the house cup due to a streak of lucky wins and nobody losing too many points. Slytherin next, just barely below due to Snape's favoritism for them all, with the exception of Harry, Hufflepuff came third, and Gryffindor last, mostly because of the Weasley twins.

Harry was sad about having to leave his friends, even with Draco's promise that he'd take them both to his summer home when he got his father to agree. Garrett said he'd go if his parents let him and Harry nodded in agreement.

Harry walked home from London, he wished he could just float home, but that'd require two different spells, one to make him float, and the other to make him go forward, he didn't feel like doing that so he simply walked. He planned on only using magic to make a point in his house, otherwise he might get lazy, its a bit annoying for him to be out of shape simply because he doesn't feel like walking. He was going to enjoy theses next few months.

**Judging from the time it took to write this, and how long it is, unless I hit a massive amount of writer's block, which I probably will because I'm saying this, I should be to year 3 within the next two weeks, wow.**

**I would like you all to review though, since every time that happens I get new inspiration to write, and possibly new ideas as well. And if any of you can guess what my surprise is I will mention that you got it when I write the chapter.**

**Yes I know it's strange that I put Ron in Hufflepuff when the rest of his family is still in Gryffindor, but I put Hermione in Ravenclaw and Harry in Slytherin so it just felt right. I am willing to rewrite it if any of you are annoyed by it, it isn't quite a plot point yet so it doesn't matter to me.**

**Just to be clear, Quirrell was stopped by one of the traps on the way to the Stone, most likely Snape's since that was the most daunting one. Voldemort had left him by the time he was found, and was simply called insane with his blubbering about his master hurting him for not getting the Stone.**

**As always, hope you enjoyed.**

**-WhatTheFAQ**


	3. Year 2

**So year 2, this is the farthest I've gotten in a Harry Potter fanfic. I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter, and as I've said before, any and all criticisms will be welcome in the review section. Still no one has guessed the plot idea.**

**Hope you all will enjoy it.**

**-WhatTheFAQ**

**Harry Potter and I'm bad at titles**

**Chapter 3: Wait I have a plan for this fic?**

Harry sat in his home, waiting patiently for a letter. He knew it wasn't likely to get here while he was waiting but he had enough patience to sit there until something changed. The change came when Vernon knocked on his door hesitantly. Harry guessed it made sense he'd be hesitant, Harry had left without warning the year before to go to a school to learn magic, and now he was back and had gone into his old room without a word.

"Yes?"

"It's your uncle"

"Come in" Harry rather liked the way his uncle was treating him.

"I-We were wondering why you came back?"

"Because I can't stay there all year, you'll see me here for a few weeks, or less, since I'm expecting a letter from a friend to invite me to his summer home"

"Alright, well would you like anything?" Harry expected he was trying to get on his good side. Harry didn't do anything to stop him.

"No I'm fine for now." He left quickly.

The letter came in the next few days, he replied and sent it with Congelo. He smiled and thought wonderfully about what the next few weeks would bring until Hogwarts again. He set to finishing a Charms paper that he had been assigned.

When Harry announced he'd be leaving the next day he could feel the relief pouring off the others. He nodded and finished his meal, before going to his room and packing his things. Slash, he noticed, was on his bed and staring at his closet Harry wondered at the strange behavior and went over to the closet. He opened it and out popped a little creature.

"Dobby is sorry sir, Dobby is liking the feel of robes."

"Sorry, do I know you?"

"Know Dobby? No Harry Potter doesn't know Dobby, Dobby is a house elf, sworn to serve his family for all his life."

"And who is your family?"

"Dobby mustn't say. If master knew he was here, he'd punish Dobby very badly."

"And why are you here?"

"Dobby is here because Hogwarts School is not safe, dark things are taking place there"

"I think I can take care of myself thank you very much."

"But Dobby... Dobby must protect Harry Potter"

"Thank you Dobby, but you need to serve your family, I can handle myself." Dobby turned around and Harry noticed a symbol on the back of the raggedy pillowcase Dobby was wearing, a small symbol, a W, or maybe an upside down M, with dragons and spears. It was some kind of crest.

"Harry must not go to Hogwarts this year, if Dobby is still to serve his family then it must happen."

"Dobby, I'm going to Hogwarts one way or another"

"If that is what you wish, then Dobby must keep you another way" He turns and runs down the stairs, Harry right after him. Dobby stops at the bottom and snaps his fingers, a red bolt flies out and hits Dudley on the back of the head, he snaps his fingers again and disappears as Harry grabs him. Dudley falls to the floor, and Petunia goes to her son's aid while Vernon rushed at Harry, without thinking he used a spell taught to him by Quirrell, the knock back jinx.

"_Flipendo_" He said, pointing at Vernon, who was knocked back, "Let me explain" He said as Vernon rushed at him again. "_Flipendo_" He said again, knocking him back again. "It was a house elf, and-"

"Vernon he's not dead" Petunia screamed with joy, hugging the head of her son.

"What?" Vernon stopped dead in his tracks.

"He's just asleep."

"Ah, is that it? You aren't powerful enough yet to kill us? Or did you make it that he can't wake up again? Is that it?!" He was starting to yell.

"No I didn't. This house elf didn't want me to go to Hogwarts, so he did that so you would keep me here, like you could" Harry had allowed a bit of condescension to get in his voice at the end, which only made Vernon angrier.

"What in the blazes is a house elf? And why isn't it here now?"

"He disappeared, and they're little people that serve Wizarding families."

"Well that's just perfect isn't it, put our son into eternal sleep and then claim a disappearing gnome did it"

"It's a house elf and-"

"I DON'T BLOODY CARE IF IT'S FATHER CHRISTMAS'S HEAD ELF!" He roared.

"_Flipendo_" Harry said again, knocking Vernon back and hopefully quieting him for a second. "I didn't do it! But I might be able to fix it"

They got quiet at that, and right as it looked like Vernon was going to yell again, Petunia said quietly, "Let's see what he can do Vernon"

He took out his DADA book and looked for what it could be. He found the spell. It was called _Stupefy_ and its counter was _Rennervate_. He said the counter spell and pointed at Dudley, he woke up and looked around like an idiot. Harry sighed and walked back up to his room.

Harry left the next day at 8:00, not talking to any of them, and walking to the train station. Harry saw Malfoy and Garrett and waved. The two returned it and they sat on a bench.

"I don't know how the muggles can stand just waiting around here for a train"

"You got on the train for last year, and you will this year, right?"

"Well, yes. But we should be able to get there another way" Harry ignored his contradictory statement.

"So whose going to pick us up?"

"One of our servants, it should be here by now?"

"My father, he is taking time out of his very busy schedule to pick us up." Little time passes until he then says, "There he is". The man in question had the same pale blond almost white hair. He wore long black robes with silver thread interspersed through the material, he held a cane that didn't appear to be needed, and had a figurehead that Harry could tell was strangely shaped yet he couldn't see what it was through his gloved hand. The most interesting thing to Harry though was the crest on the left breast of his robe, a large M with dragons spears and a color combination of green and black. Ergo, the same symbol he had seen on Dobby's raggedy cloth. Possibly it was a symbol that meant something in the Wizarding world, but given Draco's attitude and the M of his last name it was likely a family crest, which meant they owned Dobby. He kept this to himself, but he'd have to find a way to corner Dobby and question him about what he had meant by dark things going on at Hogwarts.

They went to the Malfoy's summer home through a very strange form of travel. Holding onto Garrett and Draco's arms they spun around and Harry felt a force grip his abdomen and wrench him backwards and forwards and finally it let him go and he fell to the ground coughing and trying to keep his stomach in him. Garrett and Draco were at his side helping him up and the Malfoy head looked at least a little sheepish. "I must apologize for that, it didn't occur to me that you hadn't Side-Apparated before"

"I've lived with my muggle relatives for most of my life so I haven't had the pleasure of doing that before."

"Yes Draco told me about your living conditions and said it was part of the reason he wanted you here." At the end of the sentence he gestured to the house at the hill. It was modest, much more so than Harry expected, a mere two room shack."

"Let's get you guys set up" Draco said and grabbed their arms to pull them along, making sure not to crush Slash by mistake.

Draco opened the door and led them inside, Harry was prepared to drop his stuff where it was when he saw the massive entrance hall they were in. Most everything was a deep green with silver chandeliers and windows, somehow there seemed to be more than 10 in that room alone yet at most Harry had seen 3 when they were first walking to it. He would have to learn the spell that can do this.

He fell onto the bed that Draco had shown him. His room was bigger than the one he had had at the Dursley's and that alone made it great, but this was so much better. The bed filled up half the room but the ceiling was 20 ft. up and had a second level that from a quick glance over seemed to be filled with reading material, Wizarding novels and biographies, he even found some books that he knew were muggle written but had a different author named and he laughed at how easy it probably would be to do this, of course the book would have to be highly fantasy and changes would have to be made to the creatures and magic but you would be able to pass it off as historical fiction and probably make a lot of money off of it if the Malfoy's were a good representation of the Wizarding majority. It didn't bother him too unduly that the Malfoy's were racist against muggles, it probably stemmed from a superiority complex. As useful as magic was he could see so many ways that muggles were more advanced than wizards. He didn't intend to bring it up though, that would surely get him thrown out and he'd have to return to the Dursley's with his tail between his legs.

The rest of the room was great as well. A closet filled with robes and such. With sizes ranging from Garrett's tall height to his shorter height. Harry slipped them on and went back to exploring the reading loft.

Dinner that night was enjoyable. Surprisingly enough Lucius Malfoy was good company. He didn't look down on them really, or any more than a normal adult would that is. Harry was particularly interested in what he did at the ministry. He had wondered how similar it was to muggle politics and which was more advanced.

Lucius had done a quick run through of their politics a system similar to the muggle Aristocracy. There was the appearance of an Executive power with the Minister, yet this very easily seen by Harry to be a Dictatorship with him having extreme power and a life long term, unless he retires. The only body close to his political clout is the Wizengamot which from it's ranks the Minister is chosen. Making it incidentally similar to the Catholic Church's system of electing the Pope.

Lucius mentioned giving generously to the Government which Harry quickly assumed meant he paid the right people, probably the Minister himself so he can get certain laws passed and other laws removed. Harry understood the purpose of this, it gave one extreme political power with none of the accountability. Harry found it distasteful in the extreme.

Harry tried to change the subject, he knew his views on the subject would come out if he kept talking. He kept this up until it finally did change. He then continued to converse as normal. The new subject was on the pros and cons of the current Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. Harry admitted he knew very little about the Headmaster. He hadn't really had any interaction besides merely seeing him at lunches and dinners. He did get a run down of what he'd done for the school and Harry watched in wonder as Garrett seemed to grow some backbone. Draco and his father were very much against Dumbledore, as judged from their comments on him, but Garrett was a big supporter of him, noting his work in bringing down Voldemort and the increase in trained and powerful wizards ever since he became Headmaster.

"The Dark Lord was not brought down by Dumbledore, he was brought down by the very soul we have here, Harry Potter. Harry what do you think?" Harry wasn't prepared exactly to be asked his opinion and tried again to get out of it.

"I don't really know enough about him to say for sure"

"But you've heard what we've said about him, surely that's enough to gain a vague view of the man, enough for an opinion" Lucius continued to question him.

"If I have to, I'd say his heart is in the right place, and he does get results, but his methods are flawed, or at least that's what I'm getting from what I've heard so far."

"Well that does about sum him up, after all he brought you to those relatives of yours, dreadfully bad decision if you ask me, even if it was done with good intentions"

"Oh, he brought me to them. I'd have to agree with you there and I must say that I'd much prefer having grown up knowing I was a wizard than otherwise."

Finally Lucius sent them off to bed, their talking keeping them up until 3 in the morning, not a good time for anybody to be up. Harry crawled into his bed and was out like a light, and it was noon before he woke up.

When he did wake up he got dressed in new robes and walked around the home, noting that a large portion of the house seemed to be inaccessible . And speaking of that, there seemed to be no servants at all. His lessons in Transfiguration told him you couldn't make food out of nothing so there must be someone making the food. He'd have to ask Lucius about it when he got back from work.

That night when Lucius did return he told Harry that he had brought some house elves with him from the Malfoy's mansion. This bit of information made him determined to find Dobby if he was here. So as he lied in bed that night, he slipped out when he thought all were asleep, he walked as silently as he could to his bag, inside of which was, among his books and school supplies, his invisibility cloak. He had gotten it at Christmas and there wasn't a name in the message left with it. He didn't know who gave it to him but he hadn't had too much of a reason to use it in the last few months, but now was a perfect time. He pulled it over his head and saw in the mirror on the wall that he was no where to be seen. He had a grin that no one could see as he slipped out of his room in socks and crept along, noticing quickly that someone, or possibly more than one someone, was up and about.

Harry reached the place where he heard the most movement and watched in wonder as a little creature walked out of the wall right next to him, almost running into him but missing him by mere centimeters, Harry had to hold himself still for 10 whole seconds before the house elf got far enough away that Harry was able to trust that he wasn't found to let his breath out.

It was simply a waiting game at that point, as house elf after house elf came and left the room on the other side of the wall that Harry was not able to access. He felt where the house elves had entered and left the room but that section of the wall was as solid as any other. Finally Harry was forced to return to his bed, and wait for the next night.

This pattern continued until Harry was forced to accept that he was mistaken and Dobby wasn't owned by the Malfoy's, maybe the dragons and spears were a common part of a crest and it really was a W, not an M. And it was with an unfulfilled desire in his chest that he bade farewell to Lucius and walked with Draco and Garrett to the entrance to the magical train station. They got their tickets and found an empty compartment. They discussed many things including their studies and how the classmates they saw from the window had changed.

Draco was talking quite a bit and seemed very excited, until Hermione showed up. Harry didn't notice it immediately but when Hermione arrived Harry noticed how Draco immediately was less involved, only talking when directly spoken too. Harry wondered what was wrong, surely his racism wouldn't extend to Hermione. He needed to talk about it with Draco when they got back to Hogwarts.

At Hogwarts things settled into a routine almost forgotten, yet easily remembered. Harry wished it would never end. The only part he wished would end, he wished would end quite soon: Lockhart's teaching. It seemed to be almost the exact opposite of Snape's teaching style, where Snape was uninvolved, focusing solely on the instructions, Lockhart was annoyingly involved, ignoring even the most basic of the instructions in the standard books and instead having them act out scenes from his book. Unfortunately for Harry, Lockhart seemed to have taken a liking to him given that they were both celebrities, and this caused him to choose Harry whenever possible to be part of his little plays. Further unfortunately, Hermione seemed to be head over heels for him, as was almost every other girl in his year. Harry was unable to convince her of how egotistical he was, she'd simply brush it off and say he was simply confident in his abilities, or just pretend she didn't hear him.

It was almost a relief when the cat was petrified, that at least broke up the monotony. And the message on the wall was fear inspiring as well, the words "Heir to Slytherin" were heard by Harry as whispers around the school and even from Draco who told him what the chamber of secrets supposedly was, and it just brought up memories of their first feast. And how Draco mentioned he could be related to Slytherin himself. He needed to find more about his family history and see if he was related to Slytherin in any way.

He headed to the genealogy section of the Library and found books upon books for pureblood families, notably the Malfoy's and the Potter's. He found the most recent volume of his line and found it covered in dust, and the date it was published put it from a guess as to when his parents would be in school, around his parents' 5th and 6th years here. And he found it so, no mention of him at all, but a section on his father was there. He read about his achievements, seeker, good amount of Owls, guess it puts it in his 6th year, and little else besides a physical description of him, he found it matched him quite well, with the exception of the green eyes he had, which he figured his mom would have given him. The memory of his talk with Snape flashed through his mind, Snape's hesitation at his eyes, and how he talked about his father. They must have been in the same year. Harry guessed his father was probably a prankster, probably a very harsh one given the way Snape reacted. And he guessed Snape probably liked his mom, it seemed like that was what his reaction pointed to. He considered that unimportant and moved on.

He checked at the very oldest book and found it surprisingly holding together well over the years. He looked through and found page after page of ancestors, past the time Hogwarts was assumed to have been built, and no mention of any relation to any of the founders. He felt a knot of stress around his stomach relax, he wasn't the Heir to Slytherin and could prove it, this should prevent any talk of him being that if his Parseltongue gets out.

Another kid gets petrified, that Gryffindor with the muggle camera, and a dueling club is announced. Harry is happy about this, he'd enjoy seeing the faces of anyone when he wipes the floor with them in the simplest ways. The first meeting is the day after tomorrow so after he finishes his homework he starts reading his dueling book again. In fact after reading it cover to cover a few times he has attracted the attention of his fellow schoolmates. Draco and Garrett hover around him, wondering why he's so forcefully turning the pages of the little book.

"What are you reading Harry?" Garrett asks.

"A book"

"Well obviously, he meant what book" Draco interrupts.

"I can't tell you, it's for a project"

"Wizarding Duels: Tips and Trick-" Garrett reads from between Harry's fingers. Harry pulls the book away and hides it behind his back. They're about to argue about it when Slash slithers out from Harry's sleeve.

/_Harry, we must leave_/

/_Why Slash?_/

/_I hear something, something is talking, saying its going to kill_/

/_What? I can't hear anything_/

/_Be quiet and you will_/ Harry does so and when Draco starts to talk he shushes him. A faint sound can be heard and he starts walking towards the door when Draco starts talking.

"Harry you can't leave now, its past curfew" Harry acknowledges it but holds up the finger again, he turns around and burrows through his things until he finds his invisibility cloak and puts it on, to the clear astonishment of Draco and Garrett. He slips off his shoes and walks out of the dungeon and into the hallways of Hogwarts.

The sound is getting louder to him, he can hear vague words in Parseltongue, like kill and rip. /_Slash you were right, but we can't leave. There's no way we can convince everyone what we're hearing, and even if we can there's still no gurentee that something is wrong_/

/_Yes there is, I can feel the snake's presence now, and make no mistake it is a snake, the snake is a female for one thing, I can tell that, and... it resonates strongly with myself, it's like me in some way_/

/_Could it be a basilisk?_/

/_I don't know, but it's dangerous, that's the overwhelming feeling I'm getting from this snake, we can't stay here_/

/_Slash will you agree to stay here at least until we can confirm that it is dangerous, or at least until we find out if it can affect us in some way_/

/_Fine, but you must promise me that if the snake tries to attack us you will unshrink me so I can properly defend you_/ It was true, he'd had to cast multiple shrinking charms on Slash to get him to stay the same size. If Harry had to guess he'd assume Slash was about as tall and wide as a bike is tall in his fully unshrunk form.

They returned to the Dungeon and Harry told Draco and Garrett about the voice he had heard, and how it was a snake. They agreed to keep it a secret only when he agreed that they'd go with him under the cloak the next time he heard the voice and tried to follow it.

The next day seemed to take forever to Harry, and he had to force himself to go to sleep for the next day, a free day, for the Dueling Club. To his displeasure one of the instructors of the club was Lockhart. Harry put down his annoyance and reassured himself that because of this he'd most likely get to go first because of Lockhart's fondness for him.

This was true when he was called up and the other instructor, Snape, called Weasley up. Harry remembered him as the Gryffindor with the loudest red hair you could imagine. And the duel was over in seconds, a whispered Accio charm caused Ron's wand to fly out of his hand and into Harry's, the first time he'd cast it perfectly. He smiled and was sent down. More were called and a tournament of sorts was set up. People being charmed, transfigured and even cursed, admittedly only mildly. Finally Harry was up against one of the few 4th years there, a Hufflepuff named Cedric Diggory, Diggory was smiling, he had seen Harry's trick, using the Accio charm to pull away a wand, and he thought he had found a trick. He stuck his wand to his hand with a sticking charm and knew he could hold hold his ground even if the spell pulled him toward Harry.

This happened somewhat when Cedric was pulled forward and onto his face, Harry quickly finite'd it and grabbed his wand from his hand. He was declared the winner. Cedric got up and asked kind of sheepishly for his wand back, Harry was a bit embarrassed at having beaten him so easily and handed it to him, he shook Harry's hand and congratulated him on winning. He seemed like a good person to Harry. Harry was sent down and the next semi-final was started, it was Draco against another Slytherin that he couldn't name, and he did the exact same thing Harry did, getting Draco's wand away and then being declared the winner. Harry wondered what he'd have to do, his secret about wandless magic might get out. Harry realized he didn't really care.

The match seemed to end quickly, the spell was cast and Harry felt his wand slip out of his hand and his opponent then had his wand. He saw Snape open his mouth to declare the Slytherin the winner when he stuck out his hand with his finger pointed and said very clearly, "Stupefy" The red spell burst from his finger and hit the kid straight on the chest. He flew back and was out cold. Everyone was speechless. He had the biggest grin of his life and calmly walked over to the Slytherin and claimed his wand from the clutched hand of the student. He walked back to his spot and the only person who didn't look surprised was Snape, he had acknowledged Harry, but he had that angry look again. Harry wondered if his father had done something similar to that.

The club was called to an official end, but the tables would still be here if anyone wanted to duel. Harry stayed around and waited for the inevitable as Draco and Garrett both assaulted him with question after question, he explained as simply as he could, how he had discovered that he could use wandless magic and he was finishing up when Hermione came up with her bucktoothed smile, "Harry does this mean I can show my friends wandless magic now?"

"Yes Hermione you can" Hermione screeched and gave him a hug before running off to presumably show her friends.

"You showed the M-Hermione how to do it?" Harry caught the catch and assumed it was a slur that he was going to say and tried to ignore it.

"Yeah I did, its how I've been doing charms, its to hard to relearn all of the spells I've learned without it, and she saw me and forced me to show her how, she's pretty good at it, even if it took her a few days"

"A few days?!" Garrett was a bit incredulous. "But according to what you said that should be months for us, since we're so used to wands."

"Yeah, sorry about that"

"Asshole" Draco kind of playfully insulted Harry. He put away his wand and tried a spell he had mastered on his wand already, the levitation charm, saying the words and pointing at a stool. Nothing happened. He did it again. Same result. He tried it again and again until Garrett had an idea. "Draco maybe it has to be a spell you aren't used to using your wand for"

"That's a good idea, it makes sense." Harry said.

"Alright, how about finite, you use it a lot"

"Yeah, I found it really easy so I think it'd be a good starting point" Harry takes out a quill and quickly engorges it and steps away. Draco points at it and says the spell, nothing, he does it again and it doesn't work, but third time's the charm as it finally works and shrinks down to normal size. "Great Draco, now let's let Garrett do it and then we'll work on spells that you've already learned"

And they work from there, once Garrett could do the spell without his wand they worked on spells that they had already learned, the first one being the levitation charm simply because it's easy to see it's effects. By the end of the day when they had to return to their common room they had successfully performed about half of the spells they already knew without a wand, and only finite done perfectly without it, but they were making remarkable progress and if this pattern continued then they should be done in about a week.

This didn't happen as they saw there progress slow down quite a bit when they reached spells that they had learned in their first year, spells that were quite easy for them with a wand, were extremely difficult for them without it. They were quite angry until they realized that they would be learning new spells in charms and transfiguration that they could learn from the ground up without a wand, allowing them to learn them easily without their wands.

But there was still one thing that he kept to himself, one use of wandless magic that he kept from getting out. It was how potent raw magic was. When magic isn't changed and formed to do something it simply obliterates. Harry found it over the summer. He had been practicing some of the spells he'd have to learn and had swung his arm. The giant cut in the floor was difficult to explain. It seemed after using so much magic he had accidentally called upon it without using words. And so Harry discovered, outside this time, that when he focused on the magic within him and moved his hand or finger swiftly he could cut practically anything. He didn't have the chance to test to many things but out in the forest where he was sure no one would see him, he was able to cut a tree in half horizontally. It was worthy of awe, but he didn't want to tell anyone about it, if someone used it wrongly things could go wrong.

Later that week Slash told him that he heard the snake again, this time Garrett and Draco came with him under the cloak. Harry hoped to find an entryway to the snake's lair by following it's voice. Until they followed it and Harry heard it shout /_Kill!_/ And ran out from under the cloak, following the voice, the two got out from under it and ran after him, Garrett holding the cloak in his hands. They rounded a corner and found a black and smoky ghost, the Gryffindor ghost if Harry remembered correctly. And a kid on the ground, one of the Hufflepuffs, judging from his yellow scarf. They tried to pick him up but found him as hard as stone. They all realized that somehow the basilisk was doing the petrifying, yet how could it have done it. Until Harry spoke, "What if you see a reflection of the Basilisk's eyes?"

"That's just crazy enough to work" Harry couldn't tell if it was sarcasm or not but he continued.

"But think about it, the Gryffindor kid had a camera, the cat probably saw it through a window or something, and this kid saw it through the ghost"

"You might be right, but let's not be too hasty, we'll mention it to the headmaster and he'll think of something"

"We can't tell the headmaster, he'll mess it up somehow"

"Didn't you admit that he was good at fighting dark magic?"

"But he doesn't always succeed, I'm sure if we bring this to the proper authorities"

"Who? Who could be more qualified to fight a dark monster than the most powerful wizard of our time"

"Enough!" Harry interrupted, "We're going to go back to our rooms and pretend this didn't happen"

"Why?" They said in unison.

"Because its none of our business" They, grumbling, started to turn towards the dungeon and walk home when Peeves appeared and started yelling at the top of his lungs that "POT BOY, WOLFY AND MALFY HAVE PETRIFIED ANOTHER VICTIM, FEAR FOR YOUR LIVES, COVER YOUR EYES AND HOPE TO GOD YOU AREN'T NEXT, NOT EVEN GHOSTS ARE SAFE" Harry rather wanted to find a spell that can kill a poltergeist.

They ran for the dungeon but were stopped by Filch and Snape, and brought to the headmaster's office.

Inside the office was a strange place, it was filled with tables that had silver machines on them, and the walls were covered with bookshelves that were filled to the brim and spilling onto the ground. The man in question was nowhere to be seen, and though Filch had been left behind, Snape had followed them up. Dumbledore soon came out in robes of a deep shade of purple that hurt your eyes to look to long at it. Harry almost wanted to laugh.

"I'm assuming from the yelling outside that another victim of the petrifications has been found." He said solemnly.

"Yes, Justin Flinch-Fletchley, and Nearly-Headless Nick" Snape said.

"One of the house ghosts has been petrified?"

"Yes"

"And you have brought these students here because?"

"Because Filch and I caught them fleeing the scene"

"Innocent until proven guilty Severus. Do you believe any of them committed the act?"

"Not necessarily, but they might have helped the perpetrator, it is up to you to make the final judgment of course" Harry didn't like the way he said final.

"Severus, please leave us"

"Yes headmaster" And he left the office.

Dumbledore spent a long time looking into their eyes before speaking.

"Garrett, Draco, Harry, why were you there?"

They all looked among each other, Garrett and Draco not wanting to reveal Harry's secret without his permission, but Harry not seeing a way out without it. Harry decided to admit a smaller secret.

"The truth is professor, we were trying out a Christmas present I got last year"

"Hmm. And what is this present that managed to get you to the exact spot of the petrification?"

"An invisibility cloak"

"And you hadn't tried it before now?"

"I had, but not with Garrett and Draco, they wanted to see what it was like wearing it"

"And you didn't do this during the day because?" Harry's mind raced, there wasn't a plausible reason so time for the ever useful tool, being vague as fuck.

"It felt like this was the right time"

"And why was it the right time?"

"I couldn't say, but its gone now"

"And what was this feeling like"

Their verbal spars went back and forth until Dumbledore was forced to admit defeat in the face of exhaustion. And so at 1 in the morning Harry and his friends returned to their dorms, where they found from Snape that they were getting detentions for being out so late. They accepted them reluctantly and went to bed.

The detentions were in the form of menial tasks like helping Filch clean, and such. For an hour every day after classes were over. They were not allowed to use magic to do the chores, and their wands were taken away. Luckily they still had wandless magic.

It took two more walks around at night to find where it went, an abandoned girl's bathroom. They looked inside and found something strange, a swirling sound was coming from one of the stalls. They opened it and Hermione screeched, almost dropping the cauldron.

"Hermione, what are you doing here?" Garrett asked

"I-I just..."

"Hermione what is that potion. It smells horrible"

"Its called the Polyjuice potion"

"My father told me about that, its supposed to transform you into someone else for a time, its supposed to be really hard to make. And is restricted by Hogwarts" Draco interjected, stressing the part at the end.

"Hermione what were you going to do with it?" Harry asked.

"I-I was going to sneak into the Slytherin common room"

"Why would you do that Hermione?" Garrett questioned

"I wanted to hear if any of you were-"

"Well that's just great," Malfoy interrupted, "the 'smartest witch of our year' can't learn to see past some stereotypes, like the Slytherin house is only for dark wizards"

"It-it wasn't just..."

"It wasn't just what Hermione?" Garrett asked, rather softly after Draco's outburst.

"I'd guess its my Parseltongue, right?" Harry interjected.

"What?" Garrett asked.

"It is supposed to be an attribute of dark wizards right? And I'm in the Slytherin house, which as Draco pointed out shouldn't mean you are instantly dark, but you have to acknowledge that Ambition really isn't all that good compared to something like Loyalty," Harry took a breath, "But, I can't be the heir of Slytherin, the library has book on genealogy and I checked my line out, the Potters go past the time when Hogwarts was supposed to have been built and there wasn't any of the founders there"

"R-Really?" Hermione asked

"Yeah, even if I wanted to control the basilisk I doubt it would listen to me"

"B-Basilisk?"

"Yep, it slithers through the walls, I hear it all the time, going on about killing and ripping, apparently its death vision becomes petrification vision when something like a mirror interrupts it"

"But... And if it is, how are we supposed to kill it?"

"We aren't, the big good Dumbledore is gonna use his magic and blow it up or something, he's that old of a reason that he should be able to do that at least"

"And why are you guys here after curfew?"

"This was where the sound went, an entrance to whatever chamber she lives in is around here."

"She?" Draco asked

"Yeah, Slash mentioned that, he could tell from how she talked apparently"

"Well... Alright then"

They left the bathroom, Harry was fine with admitting his secret to the teachers, it wasn't worth it when they were in Dumbledore's office but over something like this they needed proof. They walked to the staff room and were about to knock when Garrett heard someone say 'taken by the monster' and stopped them. A voice they recognized as McGonagall's was talking.

"...And with Dumbledore suspended" Hermione gasped but Harry covered her mouth, "we must close the school effective immediately, being taken into whatever chamber Slytherin made is not a fate we can assign to our students simply by keeping them here, tomorrow the students must be told to pack up their things" She started talking about ways to evacuate the students safely and they walked away silently to discuss what they heard.

"This is bullcrap, we know where it is, but we've lost our sword" Garrett said

"I think the teachers could still take it" Hermione said

"They won't do a damn thing, you heard how scared they are"

"And what do you think we should do?" Hermione asked

"Leave, there are other magical schools"

"There's no way we can leave that kid there to die" Garrett said

"Guys, there's only one thing we can do" Harry said.

"What Harry?" Hermione asked

"We're going to go kill the damn thing"

They returned to the bathroom and looked around for the entrance, or anything resembling it. Finally Garrett found the snake carving on the sink. Harry realized what it meant, here was the entrance.

/_Open_/

The sink fell through the floor and the other sinks pulled forward, revealing a tube, Harry looked at his three friends standing beside him and jumped in.

The way down was full of spinning and confusion, going this way then that, at one point he even heard talking, probably from the Slytherin common room given how low he was. He heard his friends slip around after he passed a corner, finally he slipped out and rolled on the... crunchy ground. He looked down and the ground was covered in little animal's bones. He checked on Slash and found him annoyed at the constant movement but relatively ok. Draco came flying out next to him, still laying on the ground. He saw Draco freak out when he saw what covered the ground when Hermione flew out and landed on him with a loud bang. They got up and he adjusted his robes and Garrett flew out and landed the same way on Draco. They got up and looked around. The ground was disgusting and so they crawled through the opening on the wall.

The pipe led them to another door with yet another snake symbol on it. Harry did his open sesame trick again and it opened up. They ran forward and saw a girl laying on the ground.

"Its Ginny" Hermione said

"Weasley's sister?" Draco asked. "How could a Gryffindor be an heir of Slytherin"

"Because she wasn't" A voice behind them spoke. Harry looked up and found himself looking at a 6th or 7th year Hogwarts student, he had black hair and was reasonably good looking, but his eyes were full of hate, insane hate that swore vengeance on anyone who crossed him. "You think a girl like that could be Salazar Slytherin's heir, greatest founder of Hogwarts"

"Who are you?" Draco asked

"She's not waking up" Hermione said, she'd been trying to wake Ginny up.

"She isn't dead, not yet anyway, little Ginny's soul is feeding me at the moment"

"Who are you?" Draco repeated, stronger this time.

"I am Tom Marvolo Riddle" He held up Ginny's wand and started writing in the air his name, and then spun the letters around. "Also known as," The letters settled. "Lord Voldemort"

They were shocked, none of them had expected this.

"But I defeated you" Harry said.

"Oh yes, I still don't know how that happened, but it doesn't matter now, I am nearly alive again" He turned and stared at the now apparent statue head. He spoke and Harry heard his words.

/_Speak to me Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four_/ The mouth opened and Harry shook the others to look at it, a massive snake slithered out of the mouth and Harry held his friend's heads down and then got them to start running. Hermione broke free and shouted "_Conjunctivitis_" Harry, looking down, saw the snake rear back and then slither around but much slower, Hermione turned and said in a low whisper, "Its eyes are swelled shut, you can open yours." Harry looked up and opened saw Hermione smiling at him, as the snake had opened it's mouth and was about to strike, he dove forward and tackled her to the ground, the snake passed just by his head and he felt it's body next to him, he knew they'd never be able to escape without talking, they needed a distraction. He could get a few words out without the snake immediately killing him and so said to Slash as quietly as he could.

/_I need you to fight the basilisk, its blinded so it should be easy enough._/

/_Alright_/

He threw out his arm and Slash slithered out of his sleeve into the air, when he was clear of his sleeve Harry shouted "_Finite_" and Slash grew to a massive size. Around half the size of the basilisk, Slash wrapped himself around the larger snake. He held the snake still and Harry got them to run toward the exit and he ran toward Ginny. Voldemort tackled him and held him down, one hand around his throat and the other on Ginny's want, shooting spell after spell trying to hit Slash, Harry rolled and managed to make Voldemort miss his target. Harry saw something on the ground next to Ginny, a book. There were small words written on it, he could only read them because of the gold ink they were in, "Tom Marvolo Riddle". It was what he is trying to protect by attacking him. He's lost his wand during the roll but things are starting to go dark because of the hand on his throat.

_Hold, hold her still, wrap tighter, tighter. I have to hold her until Harry can help me, maybe shrink her down. I see, I see him, he's doing what I'm doing, holding it still, I have to help him, no, that let her get loose, she's going for Harry's friends. I have, I have to hold her still, why can't she stay still. I have, I have to keep her still._

Harry stood solemnly, covered in magical dust. Two halves of a book in his hands, a damn book.

"You're Harry Potter right? Where's Tom? I swear I didn't do it Harry, he made me, he-"

"Its alright, he's gone now. I-I killed him" Harry fell to his knees. Tears streaming down his face. Harry looked over and saw his friends running to him. Hermione let him cry on her shoulder and Draco and Garrett were helping Ginny up. Harry looked around for Slash and saw him laying next to the basilisk. Harry got up and ran to him. His friends couldn't understand what they said but they let him talk with Slash.

/_I killed someone Slash, he was going to kill you, I couldn't let him_/

/_I understand. I-I did too, one of my own kind, I've killed before, for food. But this, this just feels wrong_/

/_Well I don't think you have a word for it in this language but in mine they call the people that do this_/ "Murderers"

/_Well brother, I guess we're both murderers_/ Harry almost wanted to laugh at how he said it, hissing in the pattern of the syllables and then a longer one to show pluralization.

/_Yeah we are_/

Harry shrunk Slash down and he slithered up Harry's arm. He retrieved his wand and gave Ginny back hers. For the first time that night, as they walked out of the chamber, Ginny on Draco's back. Harry felt the pain of his wounds, from the bruises around his neck, to a sharp pain on his arm, he pulled up his sleeve and saw the long cut from when the basilisk had missed Hermione but it's tooth had clipped his arm along the way. He fell to his knees and was knocked out.

He regained consciousness at strange times, he heard his friends' voices, and then Snape's, another time he felt the pain leave his arm. And then finally he woke up in a hospital bed.

He looked around and found Slash sitting curled up on the chair next to the bed, fast asleep. He got out and noticed what was wrong. Their was no feeling in his right arm. He checked it and found he couldn't move it past his elbow. Harry was in shock. When he finally decided he wanted answers he woke up Slash with a word and slid him up his arm and started walking out of the hospital wing.

He had no shoes on but the floor was cool to his feet, soothing. He was wearing the hospital robes they had put on him, he walked and walked until he eventually reached the Great Hall. The doors were open and he walked in. His feet were not very loud on the tile floor compared to everyone talking, and walking to the Slytherin gathered very little attention for him, up until Draco and Garrett noticed him and stood up to hug him.

"Harry, did Madam Pomfrey let you out?" Garrett asked

"No, I just walked out"

"Harry you're insane." Draco said. "So how's the arm?"

"Its useless below my elbow, I guess that's better than dying" Harry gave a little chuckle.

"Harry that's still not good, here, let's get you back to the hospital wing and then we'll see if there's anything that can be done about your arm"

"Alright"

They walk him back to the wing and Madam Pomfrey comes in within a few minutes, having apparently not noticed he was gone.

"Now dear, how's your arm?"

"I can't move it past my elbow, and its numb from there on too"

"Yes, well its lucky that your friends brought you to Professor Snape, otherwise you'd be in a worse state"

"Professor Snape helped me?"

"Yes, had a bottle of phoenix tears he told me, got 'em from Dumbledore's pet apparently. Most likely you most likely won't be able to use that arm again"

"I understand, luckily I know wandless magic right? Otherwise I'd have to use my left arm, and it doesn't work as well"

Harry was thinking when Dumbledore came in, he paused momentarily at the sight of the snake around Harry's left arm. Before walking forward again and sitting in the seat Slash had previously occupied.

"Harry" Dumbledore said with little to know emotion on his face

"Headmaster" With the same lack of emotion on his face.

"Harry I am sorry" The look had faded into a sad expression on his old wrinkled skin.

"Sorry about what?"

"I am the headmaster of this school, I should handle all threats to its security, and though I was suspended for some time I should have dealt with this earlier on, I simply didn't realize it was a basilisk"

"It isn't your fault headmaster, everyone makes mistakes"

"But my mistakes tend to be monumental, and because of my mistake you have lost the use of your arm"

"Headmaster its not all bad, I can still function without it"

"Harry I want to give you something, it isn't enough but it might help, do you accept it?"

"What is it?"

"Do you accept it?"

"Fine. Yes!"

Dumbledore raised his wand and lightly tapped Harry's hand, a silver sheen went over his hand, and he felt the sheets and could move it, he lifted it up and looked at it, it seemed to actually be glowing lightly. It moved just as he wanted it too. And then, it changed again, a golden hand replaced it, just like the previous one, it then does this over and over again, going through color after color until it finally settles on green, the color of his eyes.

"Harry, are you ok?"

"Yeah, I am. What is it?"

"An ancient spell, not known by most people, it requires quite a lot of magical power to focus pure magic into the shape of an arm, admittedly its easier when I have the hand as a mold"

"Can I still use magic with it?"

"I don't know, I haven't used it before now" Harry raised his arm and spoke, "_Wingardium Leviosa_" and pointed at a quill. Rather than the slow ascent the spell usually gave, the quill instead flew up and was buried into one of the ceiling's support beams. "Whoa"

"Harry I wouldn't recommend using magic until you have that arm mastered, it seems it magnifies your control of magic, most wizards give all they can on any spell they do, but without the control you gain with age most aren't able to use all the magic they have at their disposal, you on the other hand can use more of the power you have, it'd be wise to find a good range of how much magic to use in your spells" He stood up to leave the hospital wing.

"Headmaster, how can you tell I'm not using all of my magical power?"

"Because that quill would've broken through the ceiling, and you'd be dead" He promptly left.

When Harry left the school he was at a loss, Garrett had invited him to stay at his house once he got his parents' permission and he accepted. But how was he going to explain the green hand to them. He'd gotten by without being found out by keeping his sleeves rolled down even in the hot weather and wearing gloves. He'd tried to change it's color already but the charm didn't take. He shook his head and decided to deal with it when it came up.

Things on the road settled into a routine almost forgotten, but easily remembered. He walked home. The grass was green and the sun was hot. He had rolled up his sleeves and presented a strange sight. A young boy had green snake wrapped protectively around his left arm, his right arm was a deep emerald green from the elbow down and he wore his robes unbuttoned, showing a green dress shirt and black dress pants under his black on the outside, green on the inside robes, he had a bag over his left shoulder and a bird cage with an owl in it in his right arm. He approached the house and walked inside the unlocked door. The Dursley's were presented with the strange sight when he walked in.

**So sorry sorry sorry for how long it took to get this out. Extreme writers block is a fault of mine, if I'm not inspired than I can't write at all.**

**I know I didn't include anything about Christmas in the last chapter so I included it here that he got the invisibility cloak. And speaking of unexplained things, from Harry's POV I couldn't find a way to stick it in so I'll say it now that Lucius still tried to get rid of some of the dark artifacts from his house, notably the diary, and an argument still broke out between him and Mr. Weasley, and the diary still ended up in Ginny's possession. Also their books and other school supplies were gotten by some of Lucius' servants.**

**Yes the hand is a similar spell to Wormtail's in #4 but this one is born out of love and so aligns with the person's soul more, its why it turns green rather than silver.**

**Oh, one final thing, would you guys want me to continue doing each year in 1 chapter or would you prefer to get chapters more often but have it be split up into like 2 or 3 parts and have them be shorter?**

**Hopefully you all enjoyed this belated chapter.**

**-WhatTheFAQ**


	4. Year 3 Part 1

**600 something views, that is amazing. I'd like to thank everyone who reads my piece of shit that I call writing.**

**This is the first half of year three.**

**Hope you all enjoy**

**-WhatTheFAQ**

**Chapter 4: **Wait this is it? The chapter of chapters?

Harry had a similar time at the Dursley's this year compared to last year, minus the house elf debacle of course. He worked on his homework, practiced using his arm's magic without breaking whatever he was using magic on, thinking about his classmates. It took a week for him to get Garrett's letter, to which he replied backs saying he'd be there at the train station the next day.

Harry went downstairs and told the Dursley's the good news. He also produced the Hogsmeade permission form and a pen.

"Sign this."

"What is it? Some kind of magical contract to make me your slave"

"I could make you my slave without some silly contract, sign the form, it's so I can go to the village near Hogwarts, the only non-muggle settlement in Britain" The Dursley's turned pale at his small comment on the Imperious curse that he had read about, he'd never use it, but the looks on their faces was priceless. Vernon reluctantly took the pen and signed the form, Harry smiled and went up to his room to pack.

The next day he left at 8 and took everything with him. He had his sleeves down and wore his dragon hide gloves that he used in potions, they were black and scaly but had been made extremely flexible with some spell. They were insulated too, like dragon hide naturally is to keep the heat out from their flames.

He got to the train station and was immediately assaulted by Garrett and Hermione with hugs, and Draco waving as he walked up as well. They grabbed hands and Garrett held onto his dad, and Harry felt the familiar feeling of being wrenched from behind his abdomen into empty space and managed to roll into a kneeling position, Hermione on the other hand was on the ground, similar to how he had been and they gathered around her trying to help her get settled and stand up.

The house seemed similar to his aunt and uncles, it was out in suburbia and Harry was not very comfortable with the comparison, it brought back bad memories, memories which were destroy when he walked inside and one, noticed the increased size that the Malfoy summer home had had and two, noted the rather mess everything was in, his aunt would never have let the mess accumulate like this. Hermione seemed to accept the fact that it was bigger on the inside pretty easily, she'd probably read about the spell somewhere.

Harry was feeling pretty excited about what was to come when he noticed the expression on Malfoy's face, it was one of relief and was probably the fact that this was much more wizardly than muggle. Harry knew that his racism was going to explode some day but he really didn't want it to be today.

They walked into the kitchen and Dannus, Garrett's dad, started talking.

"So are you guys hungry? I could whip something up for you". Streams of 'No I'm fine' or 'I already ate' came from everyone and Dannus nodded. "Ok, well I'm going to start fixing dinner and you kids go do something in Garrett's room"

Garrett brought them to his room and Draco acted like he had been there before, which he probably had, and plopped down on his bed and started taking off his boots. Garrett was silent for a moment, he'd probably never had so many people in his room at once, his awkwardness probably didn't help in this regard. Finally he managed to speak.

"Do you guys want to check out the Loft?"

"What's the Loft?" Harry asked.

"Remember the second floor library thing in your room at the summer home?" Draco asked

"Yeah, is that what it is?"

"Yep, Wizarding houses are made similar and most rooms are one of three or four types, and Garrett likes his quite a bit"

"I'd like to see it, I didn't get to see one after all last year" Hermione seemed to not notice how Draco purposely didn't invite her.

"I'd like to see it too" Harry said.

"Well screw it I'll come too"

Garrett was silent again but the gestured to the ladder on the wall and started climbing up.

The room had been massively changed from the one Harry had had. It was much larger, presumably a spell had been cast, perhaps the same one that made the house bigger on the inside, but with a second layer of the spell. It had the same type of library but from what Harry saw, many more books and most of them were on different surfaces, tables, the floor, Harry even saw a stack on books balanced on a statue of some wizard.

"So, er, this is the Loft and, er, I study here and-"

"Is this a 9th grade physics book?" Hermione asked suddenly.

"Yeah, my parents got me it, they say wizards ignore the laws of nature simply because we can bend a few, and we shouldn't ignore how far muggles have come in everyday life"

"Like in politics?" Harry mumbled.

"What was that?" Draco asked.

"Oh nothing" Harry said. But their quick conversation went unnoticed by the other two, who were quickly discussing the combination of simple physics with magic and seemed to be rewriting magic from Harry's POV.

Garrett's unusual hobby was explained once dinner was ready and Anneria had come home. She politely said hello to all of them and then sat down at the table. Harry bit into the food and discovered it was great, it seemed to be better than most food Harry had had since Harry had found out about magic, or even before that. It seemed his aunt was more of a cleaner than a cook.

"What did you do to make this so good?" Draco seemed to be admiring the food as well.

"Well with most spells that make food for you quickly, the food is simply thrown together and no time is taken to let some spices settle in, or for things to be heated at different times in different ways. When you do it all yourself, not only is it more rewarding to you for not have taken the easy way out, you also get a better tasting meal" Dannus explained.

"Er, ok." Draco seemed off put from eating something made the muggle way, but seemed to get over it quickly and eat the great food, Harry hoped that meant he was getting a little better about muggle things.

"And what do you do for a living Mrs. Wolf" Harry asked.

"Oh don't call me that, call me Anneria"

"Alright Anneria, what do you do for a living" Harry asked again.

"Well I work in the ministry making new spells"

"Really? That's amazing, I've heard its dangerous work and you have to take so many precautions" Hermione seemed excited.

"Yes it is, but we take the proper cautionary techniques, raw magic is hard to form and it can destroy things very easily, one of my friends..." She seemed to quiet for a moment before regaining the energy she had. "So we have to be careful, but I'm close to a new breakthrough"

"That's amazing, what effect are you trying to get"

"We're currently trying to work on a healing spell that will move around organs, its hard to move them with other spells and this will return them to their proper place, or should at least"

"That's amazing, do you have any other projects going?"

"Yes, only a certain number of people can work on any given spell at a time, so with the main spell being worked on, any Creationists-I see your look Hermione, I agree, its a joke in bad taste-can work on their side spells, admittedly they can't make too much progress but the one I'm working on is to change how wands use your magic, we've had reports of extremely powerful wizards who use wandless magic don't have to use wand movements for charms, and we'd like to apply that to wands so everybody can use it" She explained. Harry doubted Garrett told his parents about the wandless magic, maybe he thought he needed permission from him.

"Garrett, you can tell them about it if you want" Harry said.

"Really?"

"Yes, they might like it" Garrett set down his fork and pointed at it "_Accio_ Fork" And the fork rushed into his hand.

To say his parents were shocked would be an understatement, to say they were pleased would be even more so.

"How did you learn how to do this, is it a new course at Hogwarts?" His father asked him.

"No, Harry found it out himself, how about you explain it Harry?"

"Sure, I discovered it after I got my things from Diagon Alley before my first year, I had tried to use a spell on the way home, the trace hadn't been put on me since I hadn't gone to a magical school yet, but anyway, I wanted to learn a spell I read, the conjuring charm, Accio, and without thinking about it I had said 'Accio Wand' and my wand rushed to me but then fell to the floor, a standard response when you haven't learned the spell, but I was shocked and poured over my books, and when I couldn't find any record of wandless magic I had only a few options to choose from. Either I was special in some way, but I didn't even know about He-Whose-Name-You-Don't-Like and how I had defeated him, so I shot that one down, next up was that using a wand in someway improved your magical ability, but that was shot down when I next said 'Accio Pen' and the pen repeated the wand's exercise of moving and then falling, and I had been holding the wand for that. And that left me with the wands being used when they were simply detrimental. And I had two ideas for that, one being much more likely, that being that wizards like tradition, which of course, when I came into this society, found out they did, quite a bit. And that would explain why we use wands, because we've done it for awhile and now we don't even question it." Everyone looked satisfied with that answer except one, Hermione. This was the most Harry had ever said on the subject and he had mentioned something he didn't realize he had said.

"Harry, you said you had another idea why" Hermione said

"Oh its nothing, its obviously not true"

"Harry. What is it?"

"Er, well you see. The other option is also tradition, that we've been using it for awhile, and that now we don't ask why, but in this option the reason we do it is so the government can take away our magic if they want" Everyone looked shocked.

"Why do you think they would do that?" Draco asked.

"Because for one, nobody should have all the power in a government, that's just a dictatorship and its what we have with the minister, and two, why wouldn't a government not have a fail safe, people revolt all the time, we don't like rules that hold us down which is basically all the ministry does, wands aren't Accio resistant because of how spells affect a wand's ability to use your magic, so anyone that had a strong enough spell could walk into Diagon alley and summon the wand from every wizard there and then apparate away, and then suddenly the most people can do is apparate or maybe use accidental magic. We'd be forced to listen to their demands. Now the next generation, hopefully, possibly because of me, will be able to use wandless magic as well as magic with their wands, and then the government won't have such dominating control" He paused, somewhat for effect, "But that isn't true, there's no way our government could be that evil and maniacal, right?"

Everyone there looked as shocked as he figured they would be, he gave a look to Hermione that softly told her that this was all her fault.

"How long have you thought about this?" Anneria asked.

"Well just like most teenagers, when I'm sitting in my room and its the middle of the night, I get scared because, you know, primal fears, what goes bump in the night, but instead of being afraid of every little sound, I get worried about humans, humans are rather, if you'll mind the phrase, inhumane to other humans. I normally don't consider the possibility the government is like this in broad daylight, because that's when I'm seeing our lovely peaceful country, but in the night all I can think of is how that type of country is unprepared for war, and I fear invasion quite a bit. I doubt our government would be that ready for war like muggle governments are, since the last wizard war was about 500 years ago, and back then muggles hadn't even developed air travel, but now they have even gone to the moon, and go to war basically all the time from our point of view, but anyway, any Wizarding government that decides it wants the world, could probably take it given enough effort." He paused again, "So I guess that's another crazy conspiracy theory, right?"

"Er, yeah" Anneria said.

The rest of the dinner was in silence.

The next day Harry heard Anneria curse for the first time. She'd been reading the newspaper and Dannus told her off for cursing in front of the kids. Garrett left his waffle and walked over to read his mother's paper, he cursed as well and Dannus told him off as well.

"Could someone tell me why we're swearing in the morning?" Hermione said, walking down from her bedroom in her pj's.

"Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban" Anneria said in a low voice.

"So who's he?" Harry asked. "I know Azkaban is a prison for wizards, so what, did he rob Gringotts or something?"

"Sirius Black killed quite a bunch of people, wizards and muggles alike after You-Know-Who was defeated."

"Hmm, so he was one of Vold-Em sorry You-Know-Who's followers"

"Yes, and he might be angry with you for defeating him"

"Well I'll keep that in mind, but come on, I'll be safe here, and Hogwarts ought to be even safer. Plus, he should be caught any day now, the aurors are supposed to be amazing at their jobs"

"Yes. Of course, you have nothing to worry about, I guarantee it" Anneria said.

They did a number of things the next month or so, from magical sports like Quidditch, to just exploring the house. He managed to keep his arm hidden, it was remarkably easy compared to what he'd expected. He'd keep his sleeves down no matter the weather and then keep the gloves on. Its easy to hide something that nobody is looking for. Finally they decided it was due time to head to Diagon Alley, they had gotten their letters three days before and didn't want to be reminded that their time was going to end. But they had to prepare and so set out for London, and in it; Diagon Alley.

Harry still could not get over the sight of Diagon Alley, it was only his second time there and it wasn't any less amazing to him, even when he knew some of the spells that made the things he saw possible. He found his way through multiple shops, staying far away from the door to Ollivander's, he didn't want to meet the possible satanist/pedophile.

The book for Care of Magical Creatures was the strangest book on their list. It seemed to be alive, or at least magic had replicated some... monstrous instincts for it. It tried to eat everything and Slash did not like it at all. Harry had to hold it shut with his belt and took to looking at it, wondering how you'd be able to read it, finally he found, at the very bottom of the back of the book, a small section of text that told him you stroked the spine and it relaxed and let you read it. He questioned the sanity of the person who wrote the book, and then he remembered the other book the clerk had mentioned, the _Invisible Book of Invisibility_ which he had apparently lost an entire stock of, and questioned the sanity of all Wizarding authors.

He looked inside the place where he had found his dueling book and looked around longer, he found more books that he thought he might find useful, including a book on spell creation written by 'one of the ministry's best and brightest' according to the back. He'd have to ask Anneria if she knew a 'Lovegood'.

He didn't get to ask her though, as a problem at the ministry kept her away for the remaining duration of their time at her house, and apparently much longer if Garrett's letters from home when they were at school were to be believed.

They made their way to the train station on August 1st and Harry felt legitimately sad about leaving the Wolf's residence. He bid farewell to Dannus and joined Hermione and Draco in standing politely away as the father and son gave their goodbyes, the two hugged and then the four friends entered the train.

Even with having gotten their tickets in advance they had gotten there late enough that from what they saw there weren't any empty compartments, Garrett found the one with the fewest number of people, a compartment with one resident, a new teacher apparently. Lockhart had been called out as a fraud at the end of the year, a group of Ravenclaws (Notably the majority were male) showed him to be a fraud with evidence that included Lockhart's poor spell casting skills and inability to actually perform any of the moves he said he did in his books, they speculated that he either lied about everything or stole credit from someone else, they couldn't find out why the person or persons involved didn't try to claim credit themselves but considered it unimportant. Lockhart went on the run and Harry had expected a new teacher, and apparently this man was it.

"He looks rather young to be a teacher doesn't he, under all the dirt and stuff that is" Draco assessed.

"Maybe he has unusual teaching methods, it'd explain both why he looks poor and why Dumbledore would accept him" Hermione says.

"Makes sense" Harry says.

They sat in the compartment up until the train started to leave, it was then that a small knock on the door was heard over their talk. Garrett opened it and found Ginny Weasley, the girl Harry had saved the year before, standing there; looking like she might faint.

"Hi, you're Ginny, right?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, I just... I never got a chance to properly thank Harry for, you know, saving me" Ginny replied nervously.

"There's no need to thank me, I just did what anyone would've done" Harry said from his seat.

"Even if that's true, I want to thank you anyway, so... Thanks for saving me"

"Anytime. Er, well perhaps not anytime" Everyone had a chuckle at that.

"Well perhaps I ought to go find a compartment" Ginny said.

"You haven't found a seat? You can sit here, its no problem" Garrett said.

Ginny looked nervous but agreed and slid her stuff onto the rack above them and sat down next to Hermione.

Their talk was simple enough, talk of new classes, the other students. Hogsmeade too, they were looking forward to the non-magical settlement. The talking ended when the train stopped suddenly. The sliding door suddenly seemed very useless as a gray frost spread across the window in the door. Hermione took out a small jar and almost silently cast a spell that Harry didn't know, sending blue flames into the jar that glittered with unearthly light and provided quite a bit of warmth. They all gathered around it and even the sleeping professor seemed to lean towards the fire.

The lights had gone out and the fire was the brightest thing in the compartment and though Harry kept his hands to it, he kept his face to the door to use his night vision. The darkness brought up bad memories, of being locked in the cupboard without food, of being mocked in school, of all he could remember of what he assumed was the night his parents died, the green light now in frightening clarity and the drip of blood down his face felt like it was happening right then.

The hand came silent, dragging across the glass of the door in agonizing slowness. Harry nudged the person next to him that happened to be Draco and he alerted the other three, they looked in horror as the hand reached the handle and started to slide the doors open. The hand reached through the doors and Harry saw what looked like bare bone under whatever cloak it was wearing, the robe looked more like smoke than clothing. He saw a hood pass by their compartment, blurry through the frosted glass. It came through the opening the hand had made and Harry saw only a mouth under the hood. It was black and barely visible, but his eyes were almost drawn to it. It had no teeth, not even gums from what he saw. It had lips though, which was just horrifying. He watched in silent horror as it's tongue came out, black and slimy, perhaps the most solid thing about the monster. It licked it's lips and looked at each of them in turn. Harry saw images flash through his mind when it looked at him, flashes of green light, a woman's scream, and then her pleading for someone to spare her child. All perfectly clear, yet just far enough away, like someone had closed a door but was yelling on the other side of it. Every single one of these sent a spasm of pain through his forehead, in the shape of his scar. The headaches weren't like any he'd had before, those were all like hammers to his head, each beat of his blood a single pounding, these were like knife wounds, carving his scar over and over again every time he saw a memory.

Lupin seemed to wake up as he summoned fire into his hand to hold. The monster turned to him and he looked like he was just feeling the cold they were feeling, but pressed on.

"Sirius Black isn't under any of our cloaks, you can go" But the monster seemed to get angry and Harry felt the cold get worse. He felt himself slip from his seat and Harry saw Lupin fire something silver from his wand, the monster left and Harry pulled himself up off the ground and back into his seat.

Harry sat up and seemed to stretch his neck like he had woken up from a bad dream, and really it was like they had. The monster was straight out of a nightmare, complete with the same sense of cold and sadness and not being able to do anything about it. But Harry almost laughed as he saw Lupin take out a bar of chocolate and break it into pieces for all of them.

"Are you all alright?" The professor asked them.

"I could be better" Garrett said.

"Well a bloody great Dementor just attacked us so I'd say no" Draco exclaimed, properly worked up over what just happened.

"Dementor?" Hermione asked. "I've read about them, but I thought they were guardians of Azkaban"

"They are, but when Black escaped they were sent after him" Lupin looked at them all one at a time, stopping on Harry for a second before standing up. "I'm going to go talk to the conductor, you all eat your chocolate. It'll help with the cold" They all looked suspicious at their chocolate but Ginny bit into it quickly and Harry followed suit.

When Lupin had left, the air was filled with the sound of chocolate being eaten before they began talking again.

"So Harry" Draco began, "Why did you fall on the floor?"

"Don't know, maybe it just had a stronger effect on me, at least I didn't faint"

They debated more on what each of them thought on the subject until the train stopped, with Lupin having come back not at all. They got off of the train and climbed into two carriages, with Harry, Hermione, and Ginny in one and Draco and Garrett in the other. Harry kept himself on the far right to keep his arm hidden, even if that meant Slash was closer to Ginny then she probably would have liked. This came to a head when he wriggled out of his sleeve.

/_Who is this human?_/ Harry heard Slash ask while the girl in question had a fearful look on her face. Harry felt a smile on his face at the look on Ginny's face, it was almost normal to see that face now, someone seeing Slash for the first time, she'd seen him in his biggest form yet she still was surprised by him being around his arm. The idea that serpents were to do with dark wizards was too ingrained in the Wizarding society, they were just animals, and had their own choices.

/_Her name's Ginny, she's a friend so don't worry_/

/_That wasn't what I meant, she's attracted to you, I can tell from the pheromones she's giving off_/

/_How can you tell?_/

/_It's the same pheromones Draco and Hermione give off when they're near you, I looked for what might be in common between them yet not present in Garrett and I reached a conclusion_/

/_Well that is a can of worms I don't want to open_/

/_What?_ _Never mind, I don't want to know what that means/_

They reached the school in a short amount of time, the gigantic doors opening of their own accord to let them in. Harry said good bye to Hermione and Ginny as Hermione went off to find Professor Flitwick for some reason and Ginny went to her table. He waited for Garrett and Draco, and their carriage soon arrived and they walked together into the Great Hall.

As he walked past Ravenclaw to the Slytherin table, and then down the line to some open seats at the end, the people around him got quiet as he passed, it seemed he was even more of a celebrity than before. When he sat down with Draco and Garrett whispering started and Harry heard snippets of people's conversations about him.

"I heard he fought a gigantic Runespoor" A gigantic three headed snake would've been bad but probably easier to deal with.

"I thought he lost his arm" Harry grabbed his arm at that, metal still hard under his fingers even if he felt everything as though it was his own arm.

"They say he used dark magic to kill the monster" They thought he was using dark magic. Well there's a surprise. Harry wouldn't be surprised that when word of Slash eventually gets around he'd be thought of as the successor to the title of Dark Lord.

Harry had just felt his stomach growl when Dumbledore walked up to his podium. He looked different somehow **(Ha Ha, out of universe joke for the movie, moving on)**. He started talking about the Dementors being around the school and he seemed surprisingly discomforted with the idea. He then went on to explain that two new teachers were joining the staff, or rather one was joining and the other was being promoted. Lupin was joining as teacher of DADA and the groundskeeper Hagrid became teacher of CoMA. Finally Dumbledore finished and Harry bit into his food eagerly, making sure to feed Slash as well.

Finally he let them be free to return to their dorms. Harry waved at Hermione who had came back in time for the feast and the new password, Vincet qui se vincet, was told to them by a passing prefect, going off to herd the new Slytherins. Harry and friends came to the wall and said the password to enter their common room and then sleep in their beds.

The shortest of the trio woke up near dawn and had been dressed long before the other two woke up. Their first class was again, Potions, and Harry found himself in the now normal situation of being ignored by Snape for the majority of the class, even when he did great on his potion.

The other classes were good and Harry had a great time with Hermione in Arithmancy as Draco and Garrett went to Divination. Finally they made their way to dinner and when Harry left Draco and Garrett to go to the bathroom he was for lack of a better word stolen away by a pair of twins. They had red hair like the Weasleys and he assumed they were some of them.

"You're Harry Potter right?" The first one said.

"Yeah, and you two are Weasleys right?"

"Yes, George" The first said.

"And Fred" The second said after.

"At your service" The two finished together.

"Well George and Fred I'd like to know why you've brought me here"

"Well you saved our sister's life-" George said.

"She has a crush on you by the way-" Fred said.

"And let us see Ron get detention from Snape-"

"It was really funny-"

"Wait," Harry said, "why did Ron get detention?"

"He said to Sprout that Ginny had told him you had a bloody great snake wrapped around your arm-"

"He didn't think to mention that it was probably shrunken down-" Harry was ready to punch both of them if they didn't stop the twin talk, although it seemed that they were probably trying to be annoying with it.

"And Sprout told him that she couldn't do anything as she wasn't his head of house, so he got it into his head to tell Snape this-"

"You can probably see where this is going-"

"And so when Snape heard this he got a look on his face like someone was asking him to choose between a shit covered shoe or another shit covered shoe-"

"One of those is probably you-" Bop, Harry could just imagine the black eye's they would get, it might be a way to tell them apart if he gave it to them on opposite sides.

"So he sighs in his normal Snape way-"

"With his normal annoyed Snape look on his face-"

"And tells him that his story is unbelievable and snitching on a fellow student lost him 10 points-"

"Which he didn't like-"

"And a detention with Filch-"

"Which he really didn't like-" Finally they paused and seemed to gather their thoughts.

"So you see, in return for all of this, we decided to give you a gift-"

"A very special one-" Harry expected a trick.

"No it's fine, you don't have to get me a gift" Harry said.

"Well that's fine, we want to-"

"Yeah, and we don't need it anymore, we got 'em all memorized"

"All what memorized?" Harry asked as the twins pulled out a sheet of rumpled and ripped around the edges parchment.

It was completely blank. Harry turned it over and over and nothing changed. The twins let him puzzle over it for awhile before saying together.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good" And the parchment was suddenly covered in lines and words, showing people and ghosts moving around the school.

"This is awesome but I have to get to dinner"

"No you don't-"

"They don't tell you officially but a lot of the 'smart people' use it for studying-"

"But we're going to use it to show you around the back roads of Hogwarts-"

"You're going to love it-" Harry wasn't so sure about that, but let the twins bring him toward the west wing.

The Marauder's Map as it was called, had shown him, along with the twins' help, the many shortcuts and escape routes of Hogwarts. Harry was amazed by it and Harry had primarily used it as a way to scare his friends by knowing exactly when they were coming into a room he was in and then standing up and looking at the door. He was knowingly copying a famous fictional serial killer's first appearance on screen. The move was very creepy for his friends and Harry enjoyed how he could shut it down and nobody would be aware of what it really was.

He found himself enjoying the Defense Against the Dark Arts Class quite a bit, even if Draco didn't like his scruffy appearance. Their first class was very strange though. The rest of his class got to fight a Boggart and he was pushed aside at the last moment by Lupin. His Dementor!Boggart became a white ball in front of Lupin, like a crystal ball the fake psychics in the muggle world might use, and he banished it back into the cupboard it came from and he locked it with a spell. Harry planned to come back at a later date when he had the chance.

It was at September 29th that he had the chance. He had finished his work and it was just getting dark when he entered Lupin's office.

"Oh Harry, I was wondering when you'd come and see me, where's Draco and Garrett?"

"Working on a journal for Professor Trelawny's class"

"Hmm, yes that would be difficult, so are you glad you chose Arithmancy?"

"Yes I am" Draco had told him that Garrett had the unfortunate experience of being told that he was going to die every other class.

"Well what is it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

"I was wondering why you didn't let me fight the Boggart in our first class"

"I had assumed it was obvious, I didn't think it would be appropriate for Lord Voldemort to appear in Hogwarts" This was an unexpected answer, Harry hadn't expected him to use Voldemort's name either. To be honest he was pretty happy to not have to say You-Know-Who another time.

"Well I didn't think of Voldemort, I actually don't remember what he looks like. I thought of the Dementors"

"Well I saw that and I think that is very wise, to be afraid of fear itself"

"That makes me feel better about myself"

"Yes, well I was just about to make a pot of tea, would you like some?"

"No, I should get back to my common room," Harry stood up to leave, "but thanks for answering my question"

"Any time" Harry walked to his door and almost ran into Snape as he brushed the door open with a goblet in his hand, Snape ignored him and set the goblet down and gave him some instructions on how to drink what was in it, Harry thought it was none of his business and left for his common room.

Harry had the Map in his back pocket, wanting to test it outside of Hogwarts. He had his Invisibility Cloak stuffed into his bag that had the extension charm put on it. He had also sent Congelo a few days earlier to request an indirect withdrawl from his account. He received the money on that day and was going to put it to good use.

The carriage ride was very enjoyable and Harry sat with Draco and Garrett on the way there. When they entered Hogsmeade Harry looked in amazement at all the buildings around, out in the open, and knowing they were all magical buildings. He wondered how no muggles found it.

They made their way to Honeydukes with Hermione in tow, waiting for them to finish their boy things so she could drag Harry and maybe Garrett off to look at the Shrieking Shack. After talking about and explaining the Shrieking Shack they headed to Zonkos and admired and bought a few of the pranks there. Harry was really interested in the pranking spell books they had there. He read the first few pages of one and liked it and bought it.

They got back to their common room and gorged themselves on the sweets. Until Snape came in and ordered them to the Great Hall, the ground was covered in purple sleeping bags and they were told Sirius Black had torn up the painting outside the Gryffindor's common room.

"But I thought he was after me?" Harry spoke in a hushed voice to Draco and Malfoy.

"It's possible he was mistaken about what house you were in, maybe he expected the kid who defeated the dark lord to go to Gryffindor" Draco said.

"You're both missing the point, if he can sneak into Hogwarts passed all of the Dementors then nothing can stop him. Hogwarts isn't safe anymore" Garrett said.

The situation slowly returned to something resembling normal as the weeks ran by, and when the next Hogsmeade trip came, Harry was really needing it.

When they entered the Three Broomsticks they found some seats in a corner and ordered three butterbeers. But when Hagrid, McGonagall, Fudge and Flitwick entered Harry was interested and pulled on his invisibility cloak to follow them, leaving Garrett and Draco to wonder why they even tried to understand what ran through Harry's head.

The conversation ran slowly and was devastatingly easy to understand, Harry accepted it slowly, his parents, the nice people he'd read about and seen pictures of, who'd taken care of him until they were blasted away by Voldemort, the people who he'd had to simply accept as dead now had a killer, someone who he could avenge them by killing.

They found him in the corner of the common room, writing something on a piece of paper and pointing at a group of frogs he'd accio'd from the lake, they saw him take out a frog, put it on the ground and point at it, and within a few seconds it would cave in and collapse into a pile of frog. Then he'd scribble something down and do it again. They managed to get him to explain himself, how he was using his wandless magic to be able to crush someone into a little ball, because that was what he wanted to do to Sirius Black.

They couldn't convince him to come down to eat and had to leave him there. They were relieved to see that he'd gone to sleep and the group of frogs still had a large number left. They sent those back to the lake and then settled themselves to sleep.

Harry had buried down his anger, but it was always there, like a knot of fury in his stomach, never relenting. He went from day to day of the holidays enjoying the activities he could do, but at any mention of Sirius Black he was instantly alert, paying attention in extreme detail to any mention of where Sirius Black might have been or might be going.

Harry entered the common room and found Hermione, Ginny, Draco and Garrett standing in a circle like they were waiting for him.

"What is this?" He said with a bit of a chuckle.

"It's what you might call an intervention"

"About what, my grades are good enough right?"

"No. It's about your obsession with Sirius Bla-"

"Hermione he murdered my parents"

"Yes I know that, but"

"But nothing, they deserve justice, they need to be avenged"

"But Harry this isn't the right way" Garrett had intervened, "you can go to the trial and watch him be brought to justice, but training your magic to kill someone, is that really the way your parents would've wanted you to spend your holiday?"

"Well what do you want me to do? The bloody Ministry has no police force that can actually do anything, magic can only stop a crime, or avenge it, it can do nothing to solve it"

"And you think you can do better?"

"I can listen, and I know he's probably coming after me, and I'll let him, cause when he finds me, I'm gonna kill him."

"Harry don't do this" Ginny almost shrieks, "you're not a killer"

"Yes I am, I killed Voldemort again last year, saving you. Now I almost regret it, for you to stand against me when I want to bring justice to my parents and save lives in the process."

"What the fuck Harry?" Draco says

"Oh yeah? And where do you stand on it?"

"I'm staying out of this, I think your parents deserve justice and lives need to be saved, and you might even be right in that the only way the government is going to catch them is when he comes after you, but killing him isn't the answer, especially when you might not be doing it for the reasons you're saying"

"What do you mean?"

"Harry have you never read a single book? This is revenge, not justice, and every single book ever fucking written would tell you this"

"I've had enough of this" Harry says and walks to their dorms, closing the sheet around his bed and laying down to sleep. He knows they're right, but he isn't going to just accept it, he won't let himself.

Harry read it slowly, again and again. Yet the message didn't change, he had gotten up early like always and checked the message board, the large paper read that all the people of Hogsmeade had disappeared without a trace.

**Hey guys again sorry about taking so long. I am a total piece of shit, but school and stuff made it hard to find time to write and my piece of shit internet connection failed during all the snow, I couldn't write anything, but I have this done and I'll be uploading it at... 1:30 in the morning, good job me.**

**Any questions you have about this chapter, ask them in a review and I'll try to answer, any critiques you have I'd love to hear, and anything else just write it in a review.**

**-WhatTheFaq**


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